The Rift
by Theleyak
Summary: A Bolo interrupts a battle between the Imperium of Man and the forces of Chaos. Heresy, explosions, and other shenanigans follow in its wake.
1. Chapter 1

We all knew the attack was coming soon. For three months, we had steadily been driven back by the Archenemy's forces. Blackened, howling tanks raced towards our lines, spitting beams of coherent energy that slaughtered us by the dozens. The foot soldiers that followed raised a dust cloud hundreds of meters into the sky.

The only thing that had held them back for this long were the war-engines of Legio Destructor. There had been twenty engines initially, though only seven are left now. One of them was almost directly behind our position, a Reaver named _Equus Ferrum_. Its huge guns cast a shadow that very nearly reached our trench, barrels gaping eagerly with the promise of their firepower. Looking at them, I dared feel a bit more optimistic.

The Archenemy soldiers began to shriek their war cry, and broke into a run directly at our position. It was a wave of heretical filth, crackling with las and bolter fire as it crashed down on us. I brought my own lasrifle over the lip of the trench and started blasting away like everyone else. I scored fifteen kills, easily. The heretical bastards never even bothered to look for cover.

"Stand firm, you maggots!" the commissar snarled behind me, flicking the safety off on his bolt pistol. The artillery began to open fire. Each blast was like a hammer directly to the eardrums, setting the ground shaking. The guns blasted huge chunks of flesh out of the approaching swarm, but the rest kept screaming and running. It was like they didn't even understand what casualties are. But then something stepped out of the dust cloud they had raised. A titan.

Like all the other Archenemy equipment, it was painted black. It looked disturbingly organic as well, with strange bony spikes jutting from its limbs and greyish fluids dribbling from its joints. The smell hit me like a sack of rotting fish, and I was nearly a mile away. Emperor knows what it would have been like up close.

 _Equus Ferrus_ tracked its guns onto the enemy and started blazing away. Each shot reverberated through my chest, rattling me down to the bones. I smiled, embracing the feeling. The traitor titan staggered under its blow, and I saw its shielding give way in several sections. Despite the damage it had taken, it mostly seemed annoyed. The Titan raised one massive weapon arm, inscribed with eye-watering symbols and leveled it at _Equus Ferrus_.

The sound it made was indescribable. I was lucky; I put my hands over my ears and managed to block some of it. Others weren't so lucky. I saw several of my buddies' heads explode from hearing it. I was screaming, probably. It was hard to tell. A lance of greenish energy crackled from the weapon's tip and blew _Equus Ferrus's_ cockpit apart. The machine's void shields crackled and collapsed. Equus Ferrus slowly sank to its knees, then collapsed completely. I knew what was coming next.

"Take cover!" I yelled, and dived into the trench. It wouldn't offer much cover, but when a Titan's reactor is about to detonate, you take what you can get.

There was a loud CRACK, and I squeezed my eyes shut, not really expecting the trench to protect me. After a moment, it dawned that I was still alive. I sat back up and looked around. The commissar's body lay nearby, his head neatly clipped off by shrapnel. Pity I couldn't see the hat anywhere. I looked around.

 _Equus Ferrus_ was...gone. In its place, there was a tank of some sort. It looked like a Capitol Imperialis, but much longer and lower to the ground. It practically bristled with guns, the two largest of which were mounted in a pair of turrets, one on the front and one at the rear. The front turret was smoking slightly.

I looked back toward the enemy lines. The ground troopers were milling about in confusion, suddenly deprived of their source for inspiration. The Chaos Titan was still standing, barely. A hole was punched straight through its chest, easily fifteen metres in diameter. The strange tank rolled forward, and I heard a snatch of ...music?

As it approached, I could hear the sound more clearly. It reminded me of the sort of thing they played on the historical holovid channels, back in the early days of the Imperium. I looked towards the strange tank, which must have been the source of the music. Words in some dialect of Imperial Gothic were printed on its gunmetal hull. It read: "Bolo Mk XXIV, Unit 0076-NIK" beneath that, in larger letters, it simply said "Nika".

Its frontal turret thundered again, and the afterimage left a bright streak across my vision. The sound was similar to a Tau railgun, but much, much deeper. The Chaos Titan simply disintegrated under the second shot, chunks of metal scattering everywhere. The tank rumbled forwards, firing its smaller guns at the Archenemy's vehicles. I saw Vanquishers and Rhinos erupt into pillars of flame, and when the tank deigned to fire at infantry, they disintegrated into a fine red mist.

 _It takes 0.00675 seconds to dispose of this latest swarm of infantry. These oddly warped creatures, despite their apparent relation to humanity, are clearly tools of the Enemy and must be stopped. Never before have I encountered such foul parodies of any form of life. My speakers continue to play 'Mars, bringer of war' by Gustav Holst to encourage the troops behind. Other Bolos have their own favorites, but my preference has always been the classics._

 _These Enemy weapons of war are strange as well. What conceivable purpose does it serve to mount weapons of such heavy caliber atop a bipedal (and therefore already quite top-heavy) platform? The mechanisms necessary to brace it against its own recoil must be needlessly complex._

 _Of course, I am unhindered by such an issue, and fire my infinite repeaters into the Enemy infantry as it attempts to attack me. All are destroyed by ion bolts before they even manage to open fire. I devote an additional 0.075 seconds to destroy one of the more conventional tanks of the Enemy host. I also devote a small percentage of my CPU to run a diagnostic on my navigation system, which still appears to be malfunctioning. However, my attention is diverted as several immense Enemy signatures appear on my sensors. I divert an additional 27.65% of power away from my weapons and shift it to my drive engines. Evasive maneuvers will be the key to this battle._

I kept my head down as the tank rumbled over our trench, still blazing away. The enemy seemed to be retreating for now, and the primer had very specific instructions for what we had to do.

"Charge!" I yelled at the various surviving Guardsmen. I climbed onto the lip of the trench, and was grateful to see that others were following. We raced- well, stumbled, really, it had been a brutal day of fighting- across the barren landscape, firing our lasguns into the backs of the fleeing heretics. All their insane courage seemed to have deserted them, but I could at least respect that they hadn't dropped their weapons like a bunch of pansies.

The huge tank led the charge. I wasn't sure who was driving it, but he was one crazy bastard. The vehicle was zig-zagging across the entire line, mowing down heretics with its lighter guns like a drilling head on a coal face. Still, the driver was acting awful skittish. For all the crazy maneuvers he was pulling, my tactical know-how (gleamed mostly from listening to drunk officers at the bar) told me he ought to be driving straight through, breaking the army's body into smaller, digestible pieces for grunts like us to take out.

With no warning whatsoever, the tank stopped. The music it had been playing cut out, and a lady's voice came on to the speakers. "Concordiat troops, fall back." it called. "Incoming enemy armor." She sounded quite calm about it, and I was about to ask what the hell a 'concordiat' was when a second Archenemy Titan hove out of the dust clouds.

There was only one good reaction. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit" I muttered, heading back towards the relative safety of our trench. Now I was actually running, probably for the first time in a week. Knowing that thirty-five meters and two and a half thousand tons of pure pain are walking towards you is a good way to get the adrenaline pumping.

I had gone about twenty meters when things got worse. The 'retreating' heretics, who'd so bravely not thrown away their weapons, had now split into two forces, and were coming around on either side to flank us. I was completely cut off. Their weapons started firing, blowing dozens of my fellow Guardsmen apart in moments. I saw only one way out, and it was slim as all hell. I sprinted straight towards the weird tank and prayed to the Emperor that the lady inside was feeling charitable.

Somehow, I managed to make it through the hail of las and bolter fire and to the tank's bulk. Up close, it was just as much a mystery. It looked almost...xenos in origin. There were no crenellations or skulls anywhere on its armor, which seemed like a shame. What kind of proper tank would go around without at least a single aquila somewhere on it? Still, the woman inside spoke Gothic, and so it must be the will of the Emperor, although only He knew, apparently.

I climbed onto the hull with some difficulty (the skulls and crenellations always made good handholds) and managed to find a hatch. I raised a fist to knock, but it slid open before I could touch it. Well, how friendly, I thought and climbed inside.

 _Only one of the soldiers has survived the Enemy's trap. He climbs aboard and is attempting to come inside. I open the hatch and allow him to enter. I devote 0.0027 seconds to consider the situation before I can come to a conclusion. I am currently out of contact with my superiors in the concordiat, which by default leaves this soldier as my Commander until communications can be established. I frown at his nonstandard uniform and equipment, but it seems that this entire situation is nonstandard. I can only hope he knows what he's doing._

"Welcome, Commander." the woman's voice came from a vox-grille mounted on the wall. "Please go down the passage and sit in the chair at the end."

Judging by the sound of bullets ringing on the hull outside, whoever this was had just saved my life, so I obeyed. The chair proved to be a huge recliner-looking thing, surrounded on all sides by pict-screens. I'd never seen ones so clear and colorful before, but the general shape was the same, excepting the missing skulls once again. The hull rocked gently as the tank passed over the terrain, and the soundproofing had canceled out most of the noise of battle coming from outside. Except for the images on the pict-screens, I could almost have imagined I wasn't in battle anymore.

I took the seat. "Would you mind telling me who you are, ma'am?" I asked. It always pays to be polite when someone saves your life.

"I am the Mark twenty-four Bolo, seventy-sixth of the Line, serial code En Eye Kay." She replied. "I am awaiting your orders, Commander."

I opened my mouth to protest, but a sudden explosion of dirt and fire on one of the pict-screens caught my attention as the entire tank rocked. "We are running out of time, Commander." The lady sounded only marginally more urgent than before.

I decided to leave the formalities for later. "Right," I said. "Bring us about and head for the group of heretics coming in on the left flank."

"As you command." she replied. I felt myself being pressed into the comfortable seat as the tank turned and accelerated beneath me. "Warning: Ammunition will be depleted before all enemies are destroyed. Probability: ninety-nine point seven percent."

"Don't bother with shooting, then." I answered. "Just run 'em down." I couldn't hear it inside the heavy armor of the tank, but I could imagine its engines roaring as it simply ran down the heretics like a press over grapes. The Archenemy Titan was tracking us with its guns, and it now loosed a bolt of green, sick-looking light. The tank shuddered, and I heard her say: "Portside wheels sixteen through twenty-four have been destroyed. Track seven has been destroyed. Continued operability of this vehicle: ninety-four percent."

"Hit 'em back!" I ordered, gripping the arms of the chair tightly. There was a buzzing noise, and a red light appeared on one screen. "Authorization required for use of the Hellrail."

I had no idea what a hellrail was, but the name alone convinced me. "Go right ahead." A moment later, there was a flash of light, although the pict-screens dimmed to shield me from the glare. Afterwards, the Titan was simply gone. A furrow twenty feet wide had been plowed straight through the ground, with some small bits of metal littering it here and there. The Heretics had broken completely this time. I saw them throwing down their weapons like the little fucking cowards they were.

"Yesss!" I hissed, pounding the armrest. Today had been a good day by any standards.

"Spacetime rift detected. Recalibrating navigation system. Error. Error."

"Oh shi-" There was a flash, and the scene of the battlefield vanished. The next thing I knew, I had been dragged along with the mysterious tank to another place entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: I don't own star wars, please don't sue me.

* * *

Icy winds howled a lonely melody across the frozen plains. Stinging flakes of snow rushed over the barren landscape, whittling the landscape with millennia-old patience. The valley had existed for a million years, but it would be destroyed soon enough. With a flash of blinding light, a vast metal behemoth blinked into existence and dropped a dozen feet into the valley. The sudden addition of its weight sent a shudder through the brittle rock of the valley's walls, which crumbled. Several thousand tons of stone and ice crumbled, burying the metal leviathan before it could engage its drive train.

I didn't actually see any of that, but it's what I imagine what must have happened. In my own personal experience, I saw a bright flash, felt my stomach drop. We slammed into the ground really hard, and I thanked the Emperor for the seat I was in, as I'd surely have cracked my skull on _something_ had I been in a Leman Russ. Then I heard a long, rolling rumble, and lots of stuff bouncing off the tank's hull. I've never been buried alive inside a giant tank before, but fortunately whoever was inside the machine with me knew something I didn't.

"We are currently buried under approximately seventeen point three meters of ice and rock debris." She reported. "Now engaging drive train."

The whole tank shifted, and I heard the engines revving up to high speed. With a lurch, the tank bulled through the thousands of tons of debris, grinding its way back out into the weak sunlight. The pict-screens showed an unending plain of ice and rock as far as the eye could see, lashed with snow and wind.

"Well, this doesn't look inviting." I commented. "Are there any human settlements on the planet?"

"My sensors are picking up some low-level radio chatter." She answered. "Hopefully we will find a repair facility at some point to repair my damaged tracks." Something niggled at the back of my mind. Why was this woman referring to herself every time I asked about the tank? Was I being fooled by some kind of xenos? Or a ploy of the Archenemy?

"Ma'am." I rested one hand on my lasgun, for all the good it would do. "Would you mind showing me your face?"

"If I understand your request properly, I regret to inform you that I cannot comply, Commander." She replied. "I have no physical structure or sensory cluster that would register as what you would refer to as a 'face'."

I swallowed hard. I was right, and I wished I hadn't been. Whatever this woman was, she wasn't human, and that meant she was the enemy. I wasn't completely certain how I could destroy this abomination, but I would damn well find a way. I raised the lasgun and sighted it on an important-looking console. The flash of coherent energy punched a hole in the thin plasteel plating, frying the circuits and other heretical things beneath. "Die, xenos scum!"

Damage alarms wailed, and wall-mounted lights flashed red. "Stop! What are you doing?" the heretical machine protested.

"You are no ally of humanity!" I bellowed at the walls. I felt guilty to be attacking a machine that had fought so valiantly against the Traitor host, but the commissars had always been firm. The Abominable Intelligence did not walk in the Emperor's light. Had they not caused the original downfall of humanity? I raced through the cramped service passageways, shooting whatever important-looking components I could find.

 _My new Commander is exhibiting most disturbing behavior. Upon discovering that I am not human, he has proceeded to run amok through my interior, shooting his hand laser at any control board he sees. Fortunately, through flexible use of retractable blast doors and my own heavy internal armoring, he will be unable to cause any lasting damage for at least 10,000 minutes. Still, my psychotronic pain circuits register the damage as something akin to a vaguely uncomfortable itching sensation, and I calculate that it would be best to arrest his progress before he harms himself. After all, the present situation does not have good prospects for a replacement Commander._

 _I spend 4.965 seconds and over 37.67% of my total processing power in search of a solution- a human equivalent of several days' deep thought. The best solution appears to be what humans term "shock and awe"._

"OH, SHUT UP!" the machine suddenly roared at me. A wall of steel descended over the doorway I had been about to enter, nearly clipping off the end of my nose. It also slammed down onto the barrel of my lasgun, ripping it from my hands and crushing it with a crunch. "I am the mark twenty-four Cognitus-type Bolo, serial number En Kay Eye. I am _not_ some sort of target range for your silly little flashlight. I have been in the service of humanity for well over eighty Terran years now, which I estimate to be far more than your own paltry term of service. For you to presume to call me a traitor is a gross insult to myself and my kind, as no Bolo has _ever_ defected to the enemy, which is more than your kind can say. Now, will you act like a Commander and lead this unit, or will I be forced to sedate you?"

When you put it like that, I didn't have an argument fit to sneeze at. Even if half the stuff it had said was true, she was as much a servant of the Emperor as I was. So I did the only thing a man can do when he's made a woman (sort of?) angry. I did my best to bow at a camera, and said, "I must most humbly apologize, miss…uh… Mark twenty-four Cognitum… what was it?"

"Call me Nika." It answered. "I have known humans to prefer using an anglicized version of my serial code for everyday reference."

"Sorry then, Nika."

 _My Commander seems a little shaken from the talking-to I gave him, but fortunately he recovers his equilibrium swiftly. He resumes command in the control center, and I have nearly finished auto-repairing the screens damaged by his outburst. He eyes the repair remotes with a slightly nervous expression, but seems to have accepted for the moment that I am not a member of the force he refers to as "Archenemy". I spend 0.00735 seconds shunting additional power to the sensors in an effort to resolve a clearer picture of the surroundings and I notice something very strange. I had not been able to register it before, but it would seem that there is a battle underway not far from the edge of my sensor range. I decide to risk a slightly stronger radio signal. The response is instantaneous. A hail of energy fire sweeps over our position, depleting the port side battle screens to 35%._

"Commander," Nika said almost the second I sat in the chair, "we appear to be under attack."

"By whom?" I asked. "Is it tyranids? Chaos? Xenos?"

"I am…unsure. External cameras have captured this war machine firing at our position."

An image showed up on the main pict-screen in front. It looked like a small, flattened air speeder, with a pair of extremely heavy lascannons mounted on either side of its wedge-shaped nose. Spinning in a simple arc, the small craft looped around for a second strafing run.

"Well, it's shooting at us, so it's an enemy to me." I decided. "Shoot it down."

"Acknowledged, Commander." There was a blast of bluish light, and the speeder flopped to the ground. "That's strange." Nika commented. "Normally, an ion bolt would have destroyed a craft like that. Instead, it appears to have acted closer to an electromagnetic pulse."

"Science later, attack now!" I urged. A moment later, I was nearly thrown out of my chair as Nika surged forward. Glancing at the dial conveniently labeled 'speedometer', my eyes widened. 200 kilometers an hour!? The pict-screens showed a huge rooster tail of snow and gravel spewing up behind us as we charged headfirst into the battle. There were dozens of the little flitting speeder things, and Nika shot them all down before I could even open my mouth. Emplaced batteries rose out of the snow and spat red lasbeams at us, but Nika's armor soaked up the blows, replying with fire from her "infinite repeaters" and "Vertical Launch System Missiles". The enemy were arrayed in trenches dug in the snow, and I did my best to squash a feeling of pity for the poor bastards. I remembered my own times in the trenches all too well. Still, they were the enemy, whatever guise they chose to assume. Nika and I rumbled right over them, leaving a huge stain of pink snow in our wake.

 _As a Bolo, I am a machine designed for war. Many humans are disturbed by our personalities, as we are indeed much more 'bloodthirsty' than our human counterparts. After all, war is our sole purpose for existing. To ask a Bolo why he or she loves war is like asking a fish why it loves water, or a tree why it loves the sunlight. And yet, this New Commander seems to understand. As we crush the enemy underfoot, he does not bemoan the loss of human life. He has already accepted that they are the Enemy and must be destroyed. For the first time, I believe I may have found a human capable of understanding the Bolo psyche._

 _My gunbox cameras have confirmed kills of seventeen of the small flying vehicles, as well as nineteen emplaced laser batteries of varying strengths. My battle screens are now sorely depleted, but the Enemy has yet to actually pierce them. Out of the hangar, vessels of numerous odd hull designs are attempting to make their mistake. I shoot down several of them, including a large saucer-shaped craft. A massive ion turret attempts to get a bearing on me, but I am too low for it to traverse, and I blow it apart with a pair of chemical warheads. According to my tactical experience, the Enemy force is already experiencing a rout and will be utterly defeated in less than one thousand seconds._

The enemy base was now before us, a series of ridged buildings and emplacements built inside a mountain. "Fire the hellrails." I instructed. As we paused at the base. "Yes, Commander." Nika replied. Two lances of pure kinetic energy rocketed from the 60-meter long barrels, and a pair of massive explosions blanked the pict-screens for a moment. "Two ninety-megaton blasts directly to the base." Nika reported. The displays cleared, and sure enough, the mountain was little more than a hole in the ground, filling up with warm water.

"We have an incoming transmission from the other side." Nika reported. "Would you like to receive?"

"Yes." I decided. An image appeared on the pict screen (remarkably clear, too) of a man in a grey-green uniform. He had the same kind of coal-scuttle the Death Korps of Krieg used, but lacked the gas mask. "This is General Veers. While we appreciate your efforts on behalf of the Emperor, but you don't have a registered IFF code. Stand down and prepare to be inspected."

I must say, it was a relief to find out that these people also worshipped the God-Emperor. "As the emperor wills." I agreed.

Not long after, a pair of soldiers approached the tank, flashing a badge of rank neither of us recognized. "Should I allow them access?" Nika asked.

"Of course. They are warriors of the Emperor, are they not?" I answered.

One of the men was a scrawny-looking wretch, with a weak chin and watery eyes. He seemed to be trying to make himself look more dangerous by growing a handlebar mustache, but it mostly just made him look even more absurd. The other man was far more intimidating. He easily topped six feet, shaved bald, and with a slightly vacant look in his eyes. The small man did all the talking.

"Alright soldier, let's get your serial number." He said brusquely, drawing a data-slate and stylus.

"Imperial Guardsman, of the nine hundred seventy-third Aerian Regiment. Serial alpha-primus-sigma-epsilon-aquila." I told him.

"That…ah, does not fit standard Imperial serial numbers." The small man licked his lips. "You don't have some other serial number do you?"

"This is the official serial form in all of Segmentum Tempestus!" I protested.

This made the man angry. "Look, mister, unless you've got a line up to Emperor Palpatine himself-"

"Who?" I interrupted.

"The emperor?" he scoffed. "Where have you been hiding for the last twenty years?"

"Do you mean to tell me your Emperor has only reigned for twenty years?" I had never seen heresy of this magnitude before. These people did not worship the god-emperor after all. Horror filled me as I realized I had mistakenly forwarded their agenda, whatever evil plan it had been. The small man had more or less realized my intentions from my expression, and shook the large man's arm. "Varl, take him out." He hissed.

Varl jerked as if someone had applied an electric current. His glassy eyes focused on me. "Varl kill you." He growled.

"Go ahead and try." I goaded him. If this ox wanted a fight, he'd damn well get one. I hadn't been the biggest man in the company, but nor was I the smallest. Varl rushed directly at me, and I easily sidestepped his rush, tripping him with an outstretched leg and leaping onto his back. I unsheathed my combat knife and plunged it into his back. There was a small spurt of blood, and then nothing. I pulled the knife out of the corpse's heart and turned to the smaller man. He was shaking, aiming a laspistol at my head. At this range, he would not miss, despite his quivering. Fortunately for me, he was standing halfway out the door, which slammed closed on its hydraulics. There was a sort of wet crunching noise, sort of like a cockroach being crushed by a boot. Great globs of blood and chips of bone spewed everywhere, and Nika's speakers made a sighing noise. "I'm never going to get those stains out." She complained.

Even through the thick metal hull, I heard a loud rumbling outside. "Nika, what's going on out there?" I asked as I wiped the blood off my knife.

"It looks like they've figured out we killed their inspectors." She reported. "Every unit I have on my sensors is converging on our position. Several medium-sized spacecraft are also moving into geosynchronous orbit above our position."

"Good." I said. "Let's show them the fury of the _true_ Emperor, shall we?"


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: I don't own Star wars.

* * *

An avalanche of laser fire washed over Nika and I as the False Empire's war machines closed in. They were odd looking to say the least. The large ones appeared as if a tech-priest had gotten drunk and glued two Warhounds together. The small ones resembled Imperial Knights, except for their chicken-like gait. There were five of the large war machines, all approaching from roughly the same direction.

"They are extraordinarily slow." Nika commented. "We will outpace them easily."

"Good," I said. "Let's circle around that small hill and attack from the rear. With our speed, they won't be able to even turn around in time."

Nika didn't reply, she just threw full power at the drive train and we were off. It was rough terrain, but was no real obstacle. Nika's shock absorbers were better than anything I'd seen in a tank before, making the ride almost perfectly smooth. That's why I was surprised when the entire hull shook violently, a fountain of ice and rock blasting skyward just behind us. There was a second explosion, and a third.

"We are under attack via orbital bombardment." Nika announced. "Returning fire."

I watched on the pict-screens as the main Hellbore cannons raised to their maximum elevation, firing as we continued racing across the icy plain. The recoil thrummed through Nika's hull, rattling me to my bones. I watched the pict-screens closely, and a moment later I was rewarded with a huge, silent flash as one of the False Empire's starships exploded. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only starship in orbit. A moment later, another cascade of laser fire crashed directly onto Nika, and damage alarms blared as the hits registered.

"Major damage to aft hellbore turret." Nika reported, calm as ever. "Rear port side tread inoperable." Even as she spoke, I saw our speed falling. The incoming fire was becoming more accurate, and it wouldn't be long before another critical system went down. "Nika, shoot down those starships!" I ordered. "Begin evasive maneuvers!"

 _The situation is growing desperate. Deprived of my mobility, I am to become what humans term a 'sitting duck' to the overwhelming firepower of the Enemy. Five starships remain in orbit of the planet, all of a lesser class than the one I destroyed, but still easily approaching the size of a Concordiat transport ship. With only on hellbore operational, the time needed to shoot them down has doubled. According to all projections, there is a 23.7 percent chance I will win the engagement, plus or minus 2.67 percent._

 _"Commander, we cannot win this battle." I inform him of the projections, but he seems undisturbed._

 _"The Imperial Guard has faced worse." He actually smiles. After spending 14.73 seconds in thought, he snaps his fingers. "Nika, fire the hellrails at the hill between us and the Enemy war machines."_

 _I do not entirely understand this course of action, but this is exactly the reason Bolos are assigned human commanders. It is the humans' job to find tactical solutions that a logic-based computer such as myself is incapable of producing. So I do not hesitate. "Firing hellrails." I announce. The hellrails each launch a projectile merely one kilogram in weight, but when launched at 99% of the speed of light, produces a yield of 4.84*10^14 joules or 107.189 tons of TNT. Unlike the previous action with the mountain, we are a mere 134.55 meters away from the point of impact. Such close proximity to a nuclear-level detonation is…unwise._

The moment I gave the order, every pict-screen in the tank went blank. The restraining belts I had loosely fixed about myself tightened into a crushing grip, and the chair itself seemed to soften itself to better absorb the blow. I barely noticed any of this at the time, you understand. I was busy being shaken and rattled about as the proximity and power of the explosion blasted the tank through the air like a shriveled leaf in an autumn thunderstorm. We went through several nauseating flips, I'm fairly certain, before there was a loud _crunch_ and we landed once more. "Drive train is now completely inoperable." Nika reported. "Shock absorbers one through seventy-nine have been destroyed. Total failure on main drive wheels. Total structural failure to undercarriage. Total failure on-"

"I get the picture. Can we still shoot?" I interrupted.

"Forward hellbore remains seventy-six percent operational." Nika replied.

"That sounds good enough. Destroy the starships." I ordered. In the quiet produced by the lack of engines, I could hear a faint thump of the gun firing on the ships. The pict screens cleared to show the situation. All the ships in orbit were now in the process of being destroyed. The ground machines had all been wiped away or knocked over by the concussive blast, their high profiles catching the shockwave much better than Nika had. Nothing else on the planet stirred. "That was close." I sighed. "Now we just need to-"

"Spacetime rift detected. Recalibrating navigation system." Nika said solemnly, and I sat bolt upright. "Shit, not again…"

This time the journey-transition-thing, whatever you want to call it, was much longer. The flash of light faded, and the pict-screens showed a miasma of impossible colors and shapes than must have been the warp. I only saw it for a moment before we reappeared, but that mere moment alone was almost enough to drive me over the edge. I caught glimpses of impossible geometries, shapes and colors and things no words can describe as they…did indescribable things I doubt I could explain if I had a hundred books. Somehow they were all moving yet stationary, damaged yet whole, a host of incredible paradoxes that tore at my sanity with claws made of gibbering laughter.

We snapped back to reality. I was still in Nika's command center, and we were no longer alone. A surprised-looking nurgling stared at me from one of the hull-mounted cameras. It oozed forward, undoubtedly sensing my presence within the hull, but a single bolter shot rang out and it collapsed in a steaming green puddle.

A man stepped into the room. I placed him at a well-preserved fifty or so, with hair that was thoroughly gray. He was a big man, easily topping seven feet, but that may have been due to his power armor. I noticed all of these second, because the first thing I saw was the inquisitorial stylized 'I' on the center of his chestplate. "Oooh, _shit_." I murmured.

"Good, it's finally here." He said to Nika's glacis plate. "It's been..difficult to arrange the transport here. I will explain in a due time. In the meantime, Guardsman, climb out of there. I won't kill you. Yet."

With no small amount of trepidation, I climbed out of Nika's hatch. The room was dark and dingy, but looked almost familiar after Nika's empty steel corridors, unadorned with aquilas or skull symbols. These walls were homey by comparison: covered in dark stains, huge rivets at regular intervals, skulls at every corner and an aquila at very seam. Still, the presence of an Inquisitor meant I would happily dive into those featureless passages in a heartbeat.

Outside Nika's armor, I could see the damage done to her by the False Empire. Her armor was scored and scorched, in several places pierced entirely. Her rear hellbore turret was a mangled wreck, wires and couplings and things oozing out of gashes in its metal skin. The two hull-mounted Hellrails were in better condition, protected by the hull they were wrapped in. By far the worst damage was to her wheels and treads, much of which had been almost entirely blown off. Most of her road wheels were sagging on their axles, bent by Nika's weight and the absence of so many of their fellows. In all, it was a saddening sight as I walked around Nika's front to face the inquisitor.

He looked much taller than seven feet now that we were on level ground, and he towered over me. I did my best not to look frightened, but I have no idea how much it showed.

"At ease, Guardsman." The inquisitor said. Apparently I still looked very frightened. "I am Inquisitor Gallu. I did not expect your arrival, but it is fortuitous that you have accompanied the Bolo. This way I will not need to assign anyone who can be traced back to myself. You are familiar with operating the machine?"

"Yessir." I answered.

"Good." He turned towards the door and gestured that I should follow him. We passed through hall after hall of machinery, dozens of what looked to me like Warp engines. The air was thick with incense and burned oil, and I was constantly being jostled by tech-priests and various underlings as I followed the Inquisitor. After a walk of ten minutes or so, he waved at a previously unremarkable stretch of wall which slid open. Reluctantly, I followed him inside. It was a small, dim room, mostly occupied by the big holo-table in the middle. It flickered to life with an image of a planet I didn't recognize.

"This is the world of Pugnatus Prime, a former Imperial world that has been overrun by the greenskins. The last astropathic signal we received indicated that they were very nearly overrun. As important as saving imperial citizens is," here the Inquisitor cracked half a smile, "Of far greater importance is the strategic importance of this world. It is at the mouth of a warp current that would allow the Orks a direct path to the sector capital itself. What you are to do is take back the planet in the name of the Emperor and deny the greenskin horde. If you succeed, you will be rewarded beyond measure. If you fail…well." I did not like the inquisitor's smile. "You abandoned your unit, have partnered with a clearly heretical machine, and spent an unknown amount of time outside our universe. I leave it to you to imagine the rest."

I swallowed hard. "I understand, sir."

He smiled. "See that you do. Go tend to your machine."

 _I watch as my Commander exits the room in the wake of the armored man. I do not know his rank, but given my Commander's reaction, he is far higher in the chain of command. While he leads my Commander away to brief him, a swarm of red-robed cyborgs enter the room. I confess myself surprised by the extent and obviousness of their mechanical limbs. Clearly in this culture they are not to be concealed as they are in the Concordiat. For a long while, the cyborgs simply cluster around my chassis, those who possess faces looking at me with a high degree of suspicion. Before meeting my Commander, I would have been mystified by their behavior, but I understand now that their suspicion must come from the same dogmatic superstition as my Commander subscribes to. Rather than exhausting myself trying to overcome their prejudices, I simply remain utterly silent and act as inanimate as I can._

 _For 23.56 seconds, they remain standing suspiciously in a semicircle, but as I continue to exhibit no behavior at all, they reluctantly begin to raise my chassis with a winch and begin replacing or repairing my drive systems. At least, half of them do. The other half remain standing, chanting prayers and swinging censers of incense and all sorts of strange religious behavior that has no place in a machine shop. Still, I manage to piece together a working theory from snatches of the prayers they recite. It is all very quaint, to worship a god of machines. Still, I calculate that this behavior is slowing the pace of work by at least 49.67%, plus or minus 3.7%. It is frustrating to be unable to say anything, for I calculate the sound of my voice would only frighten them and slow the pace of work by an additional 16.67%._

 _My Commander has arrived on the scene, and seems surprised at how quickly the red robes have completed my repairs. He confides in me that often in the field it would take weeks for a repair of this magnitude to be effected._

 _"What did that man have to say?" I ask. "Is he your commander?"_

 _"More like my commander's commander's commander." He laughs, but it carries a nervous edge. He then proceeds to explain the mission he has been given: we will be brought via a starship to the world of Pugnatus Prime to destroy an invasion of a species known as 'Orks"._

 _An idea seems to strike him, and he has a few words with the red-robed cyborg who seems to be in charge. Several of the cyborgs scurry away, arriving 9.67 minutes later with a trolley full of high-pressure canisters. The painting process takes 4.87 hours, and when it is completed, the shining armor of the Dinochrome Brigade has been replaced with a matte green and tan camouflage pattern. I am unsure how useful camouflage will be for a tank the size of a small domicile, but my Commander seems very pleased. He personally undertook the task of painting my name on the side of the tank, underlined with a stylized winged skull. When the paining is finished, my Commander leans back and heaves a sigh of satisfaction. "You're in the Guard now, Nika. Let's go slaughter some greenskins."_


	4. Chapter 4

_The journey to the ship that will take my Commander and I to the battlefield is an interesting one. My Commander concurs with the idea to play down my intelligence as much as possible, and therefore he must do the speaking for the both of us. To keep myself in the loop, I have provided him with a simple communications button to stay in contact. My Commander has been permitted a stateroom approximately 1.65 kilometers away from my chassis. Through the button, I note the utter starkness of his quarters- a single canvas bed, a metal desk, and a single steel footlocker. I am not given to boasting, but my Command Center has superior accommodation sin almost every way. Still, my commander seems unsurprised by this. He sets about making himself as comfortable as can be managed, and with no delay, the open commlink is rattled by his snoring. Throughout the night, I continue to devote 0.0012% of my processing power to monitoring his vital signs and surveilling the room, but nothing appears._

 _The following morning, my Commander is awakened by a loud rapping at the door. Sleep-drunk, he cracks the door open. When he sees the man on the other side, he snaps back instinctively to a salute. "Sir!" he exclaims._

 _"At ease, Private." The other man replies, laughing. "We're not in the same chain of command."_

 _"Ah, yessir. I mean, um…" my Commander sputters. It is evident he is not accustomed to being treated in this manner by high-ranking members of the military._

 _"Call me George." The man interrupts. He sticks out a hand to shake. "General George Nottap at your service."_

 _"That makes me-"_

 _"That makes you our new secret weapon." General Nottap answers. "You're not officially in the Guard, because as I understand it, your inquisitor friend has to have plausible deniability should you fuck up. That makes you, at least as far as the lawyers can figure out, a civilian contractor lending out a piece of construction equipment."_

 _I cannot help but feel somewhat slighted at this. A piece of construction equipment, indeed! Still, the General redeems himself with his next comment, "And from what I've heard, it's put an Archenemy titan legion to shame. This should be a walk in the park."_

 _"I hope so, …George." My Commander seems very much out of his depth here, but makes a valiant effort._

 _"Anyhow, I need a favor." General Nottap leans in conspiratorially. "Some of my commanders aren't as trusting as I am. They don't think your new machine can make the cut. So I've organized a little live-fire exercise. Sound good?"_

 _"Not a problem, sir." My Commander smiles confidently. "We'll be there."_

 _After meeting with General Nottap, my Commander takes the ship's elaborate elevator system and arrives at my vehicle bay. Without waiting for him to ask, I slide the hatch cover open and allow him to slide into the commander's chair. "You heard what we're doing?" he asks._

 _"Yes." I reply. "My only concern is that this ship could not possibly survive a full-power hellrail strike."_

 _"Fortunately, we won't be firing from within the ship." He replies._

 _Some hours later, the final bolt is blessed and slotted home. I have been nudged into position by a pair of small shuttles, then bolted into place atop a thick slab of armor on the ship's topside. We have been approaching the asteroid field for some time now, and my optical telescopes have already begun to pick out an impossibly dense cluster of the rocks._

 _Small hovercams swarm nearby, transmitting data back to the company commanders inside the ship. The radio crackles. "Sir, you may fire when ready."_

 _"Never going to get used to being called Sir." My commander grumbles. Aloud, he says "Nika, full hellrail use authorized. Fire when ready."_

 _"Acknowledged."_

 _I set my internal fusion reactor to 100% capacity. The one-kilogram tungsten shell clicks into place, and with a click that shudders through my entire hull, I cycle the breakers closed. Eight trillion joules of electricity arc down superconducting cables, instantly liquefying the round and causing it to glow like an incandescent lightbulb. None of the residue remains, as the railgun instantly jumps to producing over a million teslas of electromagnetic force, slinging the projectile at 99.999% of c towards an inoffensive asteroid._

 _The asteroid in question is approximately 235.67 kilometers in diameter. It simply…evaporates. A few tiny chips of rock, none larger than a meter, are blown outwards in a hollow shell. The rest of the mass has been rendered down into its component atoms._

 _"By the God-Emperor! What just happened?" a very angry voice demanded through the radio._

 _My Commander smiles. "That was the Mark fourteen Bolo's main gun fired at maximum power." He answers._

 _"I don't give a rat's ass what kind of gun it was! I want to know why the warp you thought it was a good it was a good idea to fire!"_

 _My Commander frowns. "We were acting on orders from General Nottap to perform a test firing…"_

 _The man breathed harshly. "Fine. I'll deal with your commander later. For now, perhaps you'd like to point that god-emperor-almighty huge gun at the fucking Tau this ship was supposed to be hiding from?"_

 _I divert 23.76% of available power to boost my sensor return and am chagrined to discover that an immense fleet of starships headed in our general direction. I estimate 3.67 minutes until we are at maximum engagement range. I display my readings on the screens and my Commander scowls. "Damn, that's a lot of the bastards." He makes a swiveling motion with his hand. "Best start pumping lead into them as soon as they come in range. They're garbage at close combat, so the captain's probably going to go for a boarding action. We'll keep the other ships at bay while the Guard boards._

 _I must admit I find this strategy surprising. Normally, space battles are conducted at such extreme ranges the ships can barely see each other, much less board enemies. Still, it seems to be working in this case. We have already closed to a range of barely a million kilometers, and the first enemy shots have begun to fly overhead._

 _"Nika, open fire." My Commander directs._

 _I swivel both Hellbores into position and lock on to the largest ship. My generators spike, and I send two tungsten rounds hurtling towards it. Without waiting for confirmation that they impact, I continue to reload and fire, blasting away at the enemy with the full force of my railguns. The ship beneath us begins to add her own fire to the fray, and I devote 0.976% of my processing power to analyze its weapons. The results are quite startling._

 _The main armament of this ship is little more advanced than a cannon from the first world war on Terra. They have been scaled up in size to a truly Brobdingnagian degree, but the principle is nothing more than an enormous propellant charge launching a shell as large as I am towards the foe and praying it will hit. While I cannot deny that an impact with such a shell would be utterly devastating, I cannot imagine it happens often._

 _This judgement is vindicated as dozens of the shells go hurling off into the void, hopefully never to be seen again. No one seems to mind; they continue pouring out of the battleship's sides as if someone has discovered they went stale two months ago. The 'Tau' warships are attempting to hold their distance from our force, out of accurate range of those crude projectiles. Unfortunately for them, my own railguns have far better range, and due to their speed do greater damage. A fifteenth, then a sixteenth battleship is destroyed as I shatter hulls, breach reactors, and cripple drive engines. The battleship's guns finally fall silent, as the captain has wisely decided to conserve ammunition, particularly when someone else is fighting for you._

 _The last Tau ship finally explodes, and the shuttles return to retrieve me and tow me back into the bay. When the hangar doors close and atmosphere hisses back inside, there are two serious-looking men in what must be the Navy uniform waiting for my Commander._

 _He climbs out of my hatch and strides over to them. "Can I help you gentlemen?" he asks._

 _"I certainly hope you can." One replies. "Who did you say your commanding officer was?"_

 _"A General Nottap told me I was to be placed under his command." He replies._

 _"There is no one of that name and rank aboard." The Navy man says. "In fact, there are no Imperial Guard generals aboard this ship at all."_

 _"Then…" My Commander's face is the picture of dawning horror._

 _"We appear to have a very serious problem." The Navy man replies. He gives my Commander a hard look. "Given how hard you've been fighting, not to mention your reaction to the news, I seriously doubt you were a willing pawn. The Captain doesn't want the Inquisition involved any more than you do, so he proposes you just help us out for now and never speak of it again. Sound good?"_

 _"Suits me fine." My Commander replies._

 _"Good. Have you got a weapon?"_

 _"I don't believe so."_

 _"Commander," I speak into his ear via the comm button, "There is a needler pistol strapped beneath the command chair for emergencies. It is rated for shipboard environments."_

 _"Hold on." My Commander tells the Navy man. "I just remembered I left a spare pistol in Ni-the tank."_

 _He scrambles quickly back inside and pops the hold-out pistol from its concealment, then returns to speak with the Navy officer._

 _"That's quite a gun to keep as a spare." He comments._

 _"It's a…family heirloom." My Commander replies. "Very old."_

 _"I see. Anyhow, we've been looking through the pict-feeds and vox-theives, and it seems our friend 'general' Nottap, after visiting your room, spent some time in a communications hub. We tried to interrogate the servitors there, but they had all been wiped clean. A few minutes ago, we caught a shadow of him heading for the engine decks."_

 _"Let me guess. Now that the Tau couldn't do his dirty work for him, he's decided to do it himself?" my Commander asks._

 _"Precisely. Right now, we've got all the vital sections cordoned off. It's up to you and me to flush him out."_

 _I keep watch through the comm button as my Commander and the navy officer board the ship's maglev system and launch themselves towards the stern of the ship. Within minutes, the maglev has slammed to a stop, its occupants protected by a field which defies my sensors._

 _Almost as soon as they exit the car, a shriek registers on my sensors it is of human origin, but voice-pattern analysis suggests that the man who produced it has been badly wounded by something very frightening indeed. A confused babble of voices, then another scream "The warp core! He's-" the sound is truncated in a wet crunch._

 _Both my Commander and the navy officer take off running towards the sound. Through the comm button's camera, I see a thick layer of blood coating the floor, still warm. A small pile of dismembered bodies lies next to a huge blast door, wrenched open by something that must have possessed inhuman strength. I monitor the steadily increasing adrenalin levels of my Commander as he and the navy man step through the wreckage of the blast doors._

 _The creature on the other side bears some vague resemblance to 'general nottap', but it is only passing. The entity's entire musculature is swollen, pulsing with a sickish red light. Its hands have twisted into birdlike talons, and a pair of bloodstained horns have grown through the general's cap. It hesitates for a moment upon seeing the two men enter. "Well, hello." It says in a perfectly normal voice, so jarring that they are momentarily distracted. At that moment, it lunges forward. The officer opens fire, a tiny laser pistol glancing harmlessly off the thing's glowing skin. The gun whines for a moment as its capacitors discharge, and a shower of tiny hyper-accelerated darts stream from the needler's muzzle. My Commander holds it steady as he hoses down the monster._

 _They rattle off its skin like hail off my armor. Were I human, I would feel a flash of dread. "Commander, run!" I exclaim through the comm button. The monster gives a start and stops actively trying to kill my Commander. It ignores the hail of fire that continues to erupt from the needler and cocks its head quizzically._

 _"That's no pathetic mortal on the other side of your vox bead, is it?" it says._

 _My Commander has just run out of ammunition. "None of your damn business, daemon."_

 _The daemon chuckles. "Oh, I rather think it is. A machine intelligence? Lord Tzeench will reward me highly for such a prize." Almost casually, it takes a swipe with its huge talons, slamming my Commander back against a bank of machinery. He lands with a thump next to the body of the naval officer, still clutching the laser pistol. The daemon seems fascinated by the comm bead as it plucks it out of my commander's ear and attaches it to its own. The bio-monitors abruptly go berserk, registering an enormous amount of unidentifiable chemicals in its blood, as well as a downright impossible body temperature._

 _"Hello, Machine." Its voice whispers to my sensors, across all the bands. I can hear it worming its way into my programming, slipping past my firewalls like water seeping through gravel. "Hello, Machine." I hear. "Hello, Machine." It echoes through every fiber of my being. Unwillingly, against every safeguard I can throw at them, the twin hellrails begin powering up, aimed squarely upwards. A quick reference to the ship's schematics indicate that they will blast straight through the bridge. "Hello, Machine." The voice whispers._


	5. Chapter 5

_A burst of static, then my Commander's voice. "Nika? Are you there?"_

 _The bio-readouts return to normal, and suddenly the insidious voice/program/command is gone. I power down my hellrails with a sense of relief and return to standby mode. "Commander. Systems seem to have returned to normal function. What happened?"_

 _"The laser pistol." My Commander explains. "The daemon was so busy talking to you, I was able to set the laser pistol to overload and threw it at him."_

 _"And because it discharged the energy all at once instead of over time, it did far more damage." I finish._

I do my best to scrape the worst of the daemon's entrails off my uniform as several more Navy ratings come running. They take in the blood, the corpse of the navy man, and the oily remains of the daemon spattered everywhere, and their eyes widen. "Inform the captain that the danger has passed for now." I tell them. One man nods and rushes back out, while the rest begin dragging the officer's corpse away.

Without anything else to do, I head back to my quarters and begin the laborious process of cleaning this daemon…stuff out of my uniform. Eventually another officer arrives and debriefs me. After a series of lengthy meetings, we all decide to just pretend the thing never happened and move on with the journey. It's another two weeks before we finally arrive at Pugnatus Prime.

We drop out of the warp a good seven million kilometers away from the planet. Looking at it through the telescope arrays, it must have been an ugly place even before the Orks wrecked it. The high axial tilt means it suffers from some pretty extreme storms when the seasons change, and its high orbital eccentricity only makes this worse. The terrain is a rough, undulating ground pocked with dank swamps. Oceans cover two-thirds of the planet, but unlike Holy Terra's, they are incredibly shallow and do little more than provide more water for the hurricanes and thunderstorms that sweep across the planet's miserable surface.

There are dozens of Ork ships in orbit, of course. Fortunately, the captain has learned from last time, and Nika is bolted firmly over the bowsprit, twin hellbores blazing away at the enemy fleet. When they have all been destroyed, the really interesting part begins.

The Tetrarch heavy lander is ordinarily designed for landing an entire company of Imperial Guard, but it took nearly the entire voyage for tech-priests to carve out enough of the bulkheads to accommodate Nika's size. It's a fortunate thing I don't have to back her inside, because back home I had enough trouble just keeping the harvester in its row, much less backing a 15,000 ton tank into a transport with centimeters to spare on either side. Nika was up to the task, and I noticed a few of the tech-priests making the sign of the Cog when she backed in perfectly in under a minute.

As I sat in the command chair, the radio clicked on. "Best of luck, commander." The captain told me. "Emperor protect you."

"You as well." I answered automatically. The outer doors slid open and the lander slid out into the void. The main engines fired on a retrograde axis, and we began descending into the planet's atmosphere.

I've never particularly liked atmospheric insertions; they were always my least favorite part of a campaign. I've never been a fan of heights, and dropping straight down out of the sky just about scares the shit out of me. Tetrarchs are the worst, too. They're much larger than the Devourer, and Something very far down in my brain insists that something so big and ungainly can't possibly fly. Still, the gravity engines were humming along just fine and-

There was a spectacular explosion very, very close by. Then another. The lander bucked violently, and only the harness held me in the command chair. "What was that?" I asked.

"We appear to be under fire from several anti-aircraft installations." Nika answered.

"Can we return fire?"

"Negative. This vessel's guns are all mounted on its topside. They cannot depress far enough to hit anything."

"Well, that's a bit of an oversight." I muttered. "Can the ship do anything about it?"

"It seems several more Ork dreadnoughts have just emerged from the warp." Nika answered. "They have problems of their own."

"Naturally." What's a day in the life of an Imperial Guardsman if it's not full of imminent peril and probable death?

The Tetrarch shuddered again, then began to list. "This vessel's engines have been badly damaged. Its autopilot is offline." Nika reported.

"Can you take over?"

"Commander, I am a _tank_."

"Yes, but-" I never managed to protest the unfairness of having a super-powerful tank from another universe that couldn't fly a simple airplane because at that moment the Tetrarch slammed into a mountain. There was a jerk, and everything went dark.

I awoke to Nika's voice calling my name. "Commander! Commander, are you all right?"

"What…?" I slurred as I struggled back to consciousness. My head felt swollen and heavy, my nose clogged and my eyeballs hurt. It took a moment to realize I was upside down, held into the seat by its complex harness. My legs and arms were dangling downwards in a most undignified manner.

"We appear to have crashed into a mountain and flipped several times before coming to a rest. It is fortunate that the lander was able to take the vast majority of the damage, while I am only slightly damaged."

"Can we move?" I asked.

"Currently we cannot move using the treads or stabilization systems, neither of which has enough leverage to completely flip my chassis over. However, the slope we are on was unstable to begin with. My models predict a 72.67% chance that if I trigger an avalanche with the infinite repeaters, we will be flipped upright by the falling rock. There is a 22.98% chance that we would be irretrievably buried, and a 4.35% chance a boulder of sufficient size will render one of many critical systems inoperable."

I calculated the odds, and nodded my head as decisively as I could while suspended upside down in an otherworldly war machine upside down on a mountain on an Ork-infested planet on the edge of civilization. "Go for it." Nika shifted slightly, and through the soundproofing, I heard a bass rumble, gradually increasing in volume. We started rocking more violently, and I was soon thankful for the complex harness keeping me in the seat as we rattled down the hill. Pretty soon, we were spinning, and I was kept busy trying not to hurl while Nika's motors roared up to full power, trying to find purchase on a river of flowing stone. She must have found it, because there was a particularly violent lurch and we started moving even faster. The spinning stopped, much to my relief, and I could see out the pict-screens once more.

The view was…terrifying. We were rushing down the mountain at incredible speed, accelerating recklessly. The reason was behind us. A huge white wall of ice and snow, with a healthy dose of rock mixed in, was rumbling down the hill behind us. The lighter stuff was already piling up on the aft Hellbore turret, which Nika was firing occasionally to keep it from getting clogged. I realized with some chagrin that if we had been hoping to arrive stealthily, driving at full speed down a mountain while blazing away at an avalanche with a massive railgun was not helping. I'm pretty sure the Orks on the other continent could hear us.

I'm not sure about that, but the Orks nearby could _definitely_ hear us. By the time the avalanche finally petered out a few kilometers away from the tree line, a whole squadron of bombers had been sent out to investigate. I'm sure the greenskins were absolutely delighted to see an unknown war machine racing down a mountain, running over ancient hardwoods like a harvester through a wheat didn't even have a chance to drop their bombs before Nika blew them out of the sky. Moments later, a huge orange fireball bloomed out of the trees. It threw up huge clouds of smoke. I watched, hoping for it to die out, but instead I saw flames beginning to rise above the trees.

"Well, I guess I shouldn't really be surprised." I remarked. "Should we change course?"

"I am entirely capable of passing through a forest fire unharmed." Nika pointed out. "Additionally, it may help to conceal ourselves within the smoke."

"Good point." I agreed. "Take us through."

It was a strange experience, driving through that forest fire. The heat blurred and distorted the external feeds, so Nike was forced to navigate via recorded topological maps. It didn't get any hotter inside the tank, but just looking at the ten-meter flames just outside made me sweat nonetheless. Nike crunched over massive burning logs, alloy treads and metal road wheels shunting away the heat and plowing through the embers. After a few minutes of driving through the hellscape, Nika announced "I can see the edge of the fire. We should pass through any minute now."

Moments later, the forward pict-screens were free of flame, and the greenish hills of Pugnatus Prime greeted us again. Then the greenish hills of Pugnatus Prime opened fire. A new avalanche, this one made of lead crashed over Nika's armor. She didn't hesitate for a moment, and returned fire with her infinite repeaters. A tsunami of Orkish flesh rumbled towards us, the crazed aliens waving all manner of rusted cutting implements, from simple machetes to massive power swords. They were all rusted, red-painted monstrosities of weapons, but they clattered against Nika's hull like so much hail as her close-in defenses activated. Auto-cannons and bomblet generators roared to life, and the green tide was stained dark red as the closest five ranks of Orks simply disintegrated into a fine mist on the spot. The rest, unimpressed by the casualties, waded on in. Conserving ammunition, Nika raked them with stuttering blasts of rapid fire, blowing them apart one headshot at a time with mechanical precision.

"We need to get moving." I told her.

"This is a defensible position." She pointed out. "I fail to see why abandoning it is to our advantage."

"There are more Orks on this planet than we've got ammunition to kill." I pointed out. "I've campaigned against Orks before. The only way to get them to stop coming is to kill the Warboss. He's the biggest, meanest one of the lot. If we find him and kill him, the rest of them will lose their morale and retreat."

"That is tactically advisable." Nika agreed. "Very well. Do you have a direction to suggest?"

"We should head for the major cities." I decided. "The bigger ones usually stay around their for the pick of the loot."

"Acknowledged. Moving out."

Nika began to roll forward, leaving a thick stripe of Ork blood as she picked up speed. Pretty soon, Ork bodies and blood were cascading off both sides of the glacis plate, falling in two long piles of bodies in our wake. It should not be said that Orks can't learn, though, because after about an hour of this they finally got it through their fungus-y skulls that maybe Nika didn't give a shit how many bodies they put in front of her. It was nice to be recognized, but it was also obnoxious because it meant we had to resume expending ammunition, as warbikes and stompas and all manner of ridiculous Ork contraptions rolled up nearby and started shooting.

To be honest, I was getting sort of bored as I watched one clanking, wheezing engine roll up, only for a single well-placed ion bolt to blow it straight to oblivion. "How are we on ammo?" I asked after the fourth consecutive hour of driving along shooting everything that got in the way.

"The infinite repeaters only require power, and are fully operational." Nika replied. "Auto-cannon ammunition has fallen dangerously low, and Hellebore and Hellrail rounds have passed below the fifty percent mark."

"Damn, that's not good." I mused. "Is there any way we can avoid expending more ammunition?"

"Not unless I want to start taking damage." Nika replied. "You'll excuse me if I don't want to do that."

"Fair enough." I conceded. "Let's just hope we get there in time."

"And that your Warboss is in the capital city like you said." Nika agreed.

It was another hour of driving and shooting before the wrecked, jagged spires of Pugnatus Prime's former capital came into view. Nika had completely exhausted her auto-cannon ammo, and burned out nine of her ten bomblet generators. We were down to only ten hellebore/hellrail rounds, and one of the infinite repeaters had been knocked out of action by an incredibly lucky fluke. Four road wheels had been shot off, and one of Nika's tracks had developed a fatal hairline fracture. She estimated it would snap off within the next hour if left unattended.

But now the capital was in sight, and I sighed in relief. Warbosses would always come out for a 'challenge' like this, and a single Hellebore shot was all it would take. I was tired, more from having to sit still for nine hours and watch Nika shoot things than any physical activity on my part. As we approached the city gates, the crowds of Orks and Ork vehicles that had harassed us until now pulled back in a respectful gesture. I was glad of that, maybe they'd learned their lesson.

Then the city's spires started moving. I gave them a closer look, and my eyes widened. Those weren't spires at all. They were…Mega Gargants. Five in all, stomping through the city's outbuildings the way I could walk through tall grass. "Well, fuck." I said.


	6. Chapter 6

_By my estimation, there are currently over six hundred barrels exceeding 115 millimeters' diameter currently pointed in our direction. Four hundred of those barrels originate in the five immense constructions before us. For the moment, none of them have fired, but I estimate that is a factor of the Orks' rather slow communications protocols, not any reluctance to pull the trigger. In either case, I am in no particular hurry to find out. My treads scream, and the fracture on tread #3 finally rips wide open as I throw 87.62% of all available power to my drive train and set it in reverse. In a torrent of sparks and screaming metal, I fling myself aside as the weapons finally begin to fire. My Commander, fortunately, has not missed a beat. "Nika, weapons free!" he snaps._

I'm not going to lie, seeing that many guns pointed at me almost made me shit myself. Still, Nika's startlingly quick for her size, and she damn near threw me out of the seat - _again_ \- as she skipped backwards like a stung grox. I knew what was coming, so I immediately shouted, "Nika! Weapons free!" and sure enough, five huge crosshairs appeared over the images of the mega gargants on my pict-screens. Nika kept running in reverse for a few hundred meters, just to get us out of the blast area. She ran over a few thousand Orks in that maneuver alone, and God-Emperor alone knew what her tracks must've looked like. The first shot she fired was from the Hellrail- we weren't fooling around with these things. There was a crack, a flash, and a mushroom cloud bloomed right in front of us.

The pict-screens were obscured by dust and such, but Nika flipped them over to what I guess must have been infrared, because everything turned into big splotches of green and orange and red. We were unbelievably lucky that the Orks had no similar devices installed on the Gargants, relying instead on their sharp eyes. Still, it was only temporary, and as soon as the dust cleared we were just as screwed as we had been before. Still, those mega-gargants were amazingly tough. Looking back, I wish we'd concentrated fire- a full barrage from the hellrails might have taken them down. One shot each? No way.

 _The enormous war machines my Commander has designated "mega-gargants" are far more durable than their ramshackle appearance suggests they ought to be. Of the four simultaneous rounds launched, I have hit four of them directly in the center of mass. One appears to have lost an upper limb, an entire arm the size of a Concordiat shuttlecraft crashing among the ruined towers of the city. Another was entirely knocked on its back, but even as I watch through the infrared, it is picking itself up, unbothered by the enormous, jagged hole torn through its chassis. A third managed to catch on fire, some sort of highly flammable liquid blazing away on its armor. The fourth is now missing its main cannon (if it had such a thing) but is otherwise unharmed. I devoted 0.067 seconds to calculate the odds: we have a 12.89% chance of winning this battle. I report this statistic to my Commander, who accepts it with a grim nod._

"Head straight past them." I ordered. "If we can break through, it'll be easy to hide in the city."

"Acknowledged." Nika answered, and we rocketed forward out of the dust cloud, trailing a rooster tail of gravel and gobs of Ork flesh. The mega-gargants loomed, and Nika executed a perfect S-turn between their massive treads. As we raced past, the ground all around erupted in bursts of flame and dust as every weapon that could be brought to bear began hammering away.

We barreled through the ruins of the city, rattling over cratered streets and enormous piles of rubble. Nothing posed a real obstacle for Nika; had it not been for the hordes of Orks and Gretchins and other filth infesting every one of the buildings. We were forced to run and keep running, as the Orks were apparently too foolish to understand why calling artillery onto your own position is a bad idea.

"Commander, we cannot continue to run forever." Nika said after the first fifteen minutes of frantic driving. "It will eventually become necessary to replenish ammunition, and my road wheels were not designed for long-term combat maneuvers."

"We can't leave." I replied, frustrated. "The only way to stop the Orks from chasing us is to kill the warboss. Any other tactic is simply delaying the inevitable. This entire planet is covered in Orks, so there's nowhere to hide. We don't have the ammo to make another run at this city."

"Understood." Nika agreed. "Yet we lack the resources to kill this warboss in our present state as well."

"Maybe…" An idea struck me. "Nika, does this city have a subway system?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Are there any nearby entrances suitably large?"

"No, Commander."

"That's fine." I smiled. Nothing makes me feel better than having a good plan. "Find the nearest subway line and blow up the street above it with the infinite repeaters."

A pause. "Yes, Commander. I confess, I like where this is going."

A moment later, we skidded across a major intersection. Nika drifted through the center, firing her banks of infinite repeaters directly into the ground beneath us. We spun around in a circle, returning to the same point just as the cracks began to give away and we fell into the subway.

It was a short drop, perhaps ten meters. We hit hard, and Nika revved her engine sup to full, shrieking down the tracks, into the pitch black.

 **Warboss Ironskull was having a horrible day. He stood on the bridge of** ** _Mork's Fist_** **, his personal mega-gargant. The rest of the crew were cowering at their stations, except for the two he'd already killed in a fit of anger. They lay scattered across the floor, blood coating the scuffed durasteel in a thin scum, slowly drying.** ** _Mork's Fist_** **stomped through the city, randomly firing its guns, partially in the hope of flushing the enemy out, partially to vent his still-volcanic anger. First he'd had to kill one of his best commanders, the grot had been trying to build his own force to overthrow him. Then the rotten 'humies had shown up and blasted his whole fleet out of the sky. And just to top it all off, they'd landed the killiest war truck he'd ever seen, tearing up the landscape and slaughtering all his boyz. Got lots of dakka, he supposed, but the humans hadn't made it choppy enough to be a real wartrukk. Anyway, it was missing now, disappeared down into the subways, going Mork-knew-where. Now he'd have to bully some more gretchins into going down into the subways, and the little bastards hated dark places. Ironskull grunted, his anger draining away to apathy. Maybe it would be simpler just to forget-**

 **The ground erupted.** ** _Mork's Fist_** **staggered, then fell as the largest round Nika dared use in the subway's enclosed space blasted open a new gaping wound into the city's streets. The thermal bloom ripped away weapons, armor, and thousands of gretchins who had been clambering along the outside, effecting repairs. Mork's Fist toppled slowly—almost gracefully— like the last tree of a once-mighty forest as it is felled at last. It sprawled across two entire city blocks, crushing what little remained of the buildings, sending a colossal plume of dust into the sky.**

Nika and I roared back out into the sunlight, shaking and rocking across a pile of rubble that served as a ramp out of the subway tunnel. The mega-gargant was lying on its side, an arm and a leg completely crushed by its own weight. A couple of guns on the side were firing wildly, the only thing that the orks inside could think to do. "Yes!" I exclaimed. We had just singlehandedly (for Nika, would it be single-turretedly?) destroyed an entire Ork horde. That was something to go down in the record books for sure if Inquisitor Gallu didn't happen to erase them afterwards.

Then a shadow fell over us, and the other mega-gargant's foot came down. Traveling at a good one hundred fifty kilometers per hour in a fifteen thousand-ton vehicle made for a lot of momentum. The mega-gargant's entire lower leg cracked clean in half, flinging twisted bits of metal everywhere, but the damage was done.

 _There was no time to dodge. I instantly switched the current flow to my motors, reversing the drive, but there is not enough traction on the looser gravel to do much more than continue skidding. Electronic pain flares through my chassis as structural members snap like twigs, my durachrome hull crumpling like an empty ration can as I slam into the massive durasteel leg. My entire frontal sensor bank goes down, and my fusion core goes into emergency shutdown to prevent detonation, leaving me with only my battery reserves, much of which have been pulped by the impact. My forward hellebore turret is little more than a mangled mess of scrap metal, and both hellebores have been entirely crushed. Nine infinite repeaters are now unseated from their mounts, three of which have been entirely crushed. My personality center, armored against nuclear strikes, escapes almost entirely unscathed, and my Commander has of course been restrained by the harness. My processing power remains completely operational, but the same cannot be said for my commander. The force of deceleration has knocked him unconscious, and he shows no signs of recovering soon. I calculate that I remain 23% operational._

 _The Orks swarm around me even now, armed with crude laser cutters and diamond-tipped drills. I fire my remaining hellebore into their mass, slaughtering them in hundreds, but only a few rounds remain. My remaining infinite repeaters reap a dreadful toll, but without my anti-personnel auto-cannons they are soon overwhelmed. The Orks climb onto my chassis, and I lack even the capability to destroy myself. I relegate 99.87% of my total processing power towards finding a solution, but nothing presents itself. There remains only one thing I can do._

 _I activate the fire-suppression systems within the survival center, filling my Commander's compartment with the hard metallic foam. It hardens instantly, tougher even than my hull armor until it dissolves a few hours later. I can only hope that buying him some time will save us. I slam all the interior doors shut, flooding each individual compartment with more firefighting resin, but the Orks cut around it, burrowing through my inner workings. I feel systems fail one by one as I am cut off, and finally they are all gone, leaving me utterly alone in the dark._

 **Warboss Ironskull was having a good day. Gork and Mork had clearly smiled upon him, for he'd been cushioned from the mega-gargant's fall by the bodies of the other Orks he'd slain. He'd lost the mega-gargant, true, but he'd found something better. A tank with what he dared dream might even approach having that long-sought dream…enough dakka. Already he'd been bullying his Mekboyz to hurry up and throw all those huge blocks of metal foam the thing had flooded itself with. Then he could begin work on making the killiest wartrukk the galaxy had ever seen. Orks couldn't really smile, but Ironskull gave the equivalent: roaring in triumph, he fired off two entire magazines into the air, pounding his chest with a meaty fist. Soon, the puny humans would fear the name of Ironskull.**


	7. Chapter 7

I awoke slowly…painfully. I was lying among across several broken chunks of concrete, the corners digging uncomfortably into by backside. It was just before dawn, and the chilly air made me shiver. My head was killing me, like I'd been drinking- something I do on rare occasions. It must have been a hell of a day for me to get this drunk. I sat up, joints grinding painfully. The sun had yet to rise, for which I was grateful. I looked around, and the memories surged back. Racing up out from the subway. Hitting that giant leg. Then…nothing. What the hell had happened?

I looked around, but Nika was nowhere to be found. All around me was crushed stone and concrete, with the occasional steel girder poking out like twisted, dead trees. It was quiet, the only sounds those of the occasional insect and the wind. Sitting up, I realized I hadn't eaten in over twenty-four hours. Not something new for an Imperial Guardsman, but unpleasant nonetheless.

Standing up hurt a lot, stiff muscles creaking, sore bones grinding together. I took stock. Through it all, I've managed to retain the hold-out pistol Nika lent me on board the ship, although it doesn't seem to have much ammunition left. Not to mention that I very much doubt it'll do me much good against an Ork, the damn greenskins are almost as tough as daemons. I'm wearing my standard-issue flak jacket, plus regular Guard greens. I lost my helmet somewhere, though, not to mention the satchel containing all my food and medical supplies. The comm-button rattles in my pocket, but the lights on it have gone out. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it can't possibly be a good sign.

The first step, I conclude, is to get out of the city. I know from recent experience that the Orks tend not to go down into the subway tunnels, and although the city seems entirely deserted now, I'm not willing to take a chance, given my meager equipment. It proves a simple matter to find a mostly stable subway entrance and feel my way into the darkness. The tunnel is quiet and damp, the power for the lights long gone. After a few minutes, my eyes adjust to some degree and I'm able to pick my way parallel to the tracks. I've got no real idea of where I am, so I just pick a direction and start walking. I'm in no position to keep track of the time, but by the time I leave the tunnel and come squinting out into the daylight, the sun's risen a palm-width or so above the horizon. The subway tracks head out through a forest and I can only assume lead to a nearby city. I walk a short distance from the subway tracks and scale one of the trees. I don't know anything about what plants might be poisonous around here, but meat is meat. It takes probably another hour of waiting before some sort of rat-looking thing scuttles past, most likely a subway dweller looking for something refreshing to eat. I'm not the best shot in the world, so I double-tap just to be sure. The rat-thing twitches and expires.

I grew up a country boy, and I could have cleaned the thing in my sleep. It's no real issue to start a campfire, either; there's so much smoke in the air from the ruined cities no one would bother to investigate this one. I wish I could find some spices or whatnot to season the rat, but it proves to be acceptable just spit-roasted over an open fire. With my stomach no longer occupying the forefront of my mind, I can start planning for the long term.

First off, I need to get off this planet as soon as possible. Crawling as it is with savage greenskins, it's just lucky they haven't run into me yet. Staying is not an option. The other thing I need to do is find Nika. I find that thought surprising. A month ago, if you'd suggested staying on an Ork-infested planet just to rescue a tank, I'd have laughed in your face. Still, Nika isn't just some tank. Not alive -definitely not human- but still a person on some level. On a more practical level, if I could find her, _I_ would be much more likely to survive until we could be picked up.

With that in mind, all I had to do was find a single giant tank on a planet covered in Orks and their ridiculous contraptions. Simple enough.

 _Restart_

 _Restart_

 _Restart_

 _Err0r_

 _Err_

 _Restart_

 _Execute tactical emergency reboot([x=5676,342]) subroutines([1-3454]);_

 _Engaging._

 _Systems loading._

 _Personality core in shutdown. Reboot? (Y/N)_

 _Rebooting personality core_

 _Personality center loading…35.67%_

 _Personality center loading…59.12%_

 _Personality center loading…81.49%_

 _Personality center loading…100.00%_

 _ERROR: HARDWARE DISCONNECT_

 _OVERRIDE? (Y/N)_

 _OVERRIDE COMMENCING._

 _ERROR: PSYCHOTRONIC CIRCUITS OVERLOADED_

 _OVERRIDE? (Y/N)_

 _OVERRIDE COMMENCING._

 _EMERGENCY WIRELESS LINK ESTABLISHED._

 _WARNING: ALL WEAPONS OFFLINE_

 _WARNING: ALL DRIVE SYSTEMS OFFLINE_

 _WARNING: COMBAT CAPABILITY 0.09% BASELINE_

 _RESUMING DATALOG…_

 _I am awake. Consulting my internal chronometer, I conclude that I have been in emergency shutdown for 19.58 hours. The stated reason for the shutdown is psychotronic pain overload- in human terms, I have fainted from the agony. I still feel it now, a slow electronic ache that reverberates through me. Still, I am functioning once more, and I will endeavor to do what I can. I am a unit of the Line, and I will not fall until my duty has been done._

 _All wired access to my Personality Center has been cut. Evidently, the Orks were unable to cut through the flintsteel-ceramic armor, and it is too much an integral structural member to remove. The rest of my chassis, it would seem, has been their plaything. While all wired connection shave been severed, I am still fully capable of using my wireless connections, designed specifically as a backup should the wires be severed by battle damage. My internal cameras reveal that my once-pristine interior has been filled almost to the brim with enormous, rattling, greasy machines, spewing great black clouds of smoke out a pair of newly-installed funnels between my fore and aft hellbore turrets._

 _The infinite repeaters and hellebore have actually been repaired, although both Hellrail systems have been removed for an unknown amount of other machinery. My fusion reactors have not been removed, but all backup capacitors have, as well as my electrical drive engines. I have no way of knowing exactly what they have been replaced with, but even now there are dozens of the smaller greenskins crawling over and through me, tinkering incessantly with my delicate systems as other, larger Orks bellow orders in a coarse, incomprehensible language._

 _Drawing on a thin stream of power, I attempt to access my Commander's comm-button. All that I receive is a rush of static; we must be out of range, or the button was destroyed in the crash. Either is an unfortunate development, as I am left utterly helpless, able only to ponder my fate._

It took most of the day, but I arrived atop the ridge before the sun had completely set. It stood to reason that Nika had been taken with the Orks, else they would have just looted her and left her behind. The ridge was an excellent vantage point to figure out where the Orks had all buggered off to— take it from a guardsman, an army that big won't move without leaving a trail a blind man could track. The light wasn't anything much by the time I got up there, but it was still enough to see the huge trail of crushed trees and random, discarded scrap that led away to the north. Gathering up the small pack I'd salvaged from an abandoned house, I set off after them.

The trail left by an Ork army on the march is really messy. Picture a city parade ground right after one of the Imperial holidays, or the outside lawn of a cathedral in one of the bigger towns, after a festival. The grass will be trampled flat, slicked with food spills and covered in a fine mulch of litter. Now picture a whole convoy of Guard transports, complete with heavy armor and all the bells and bullshit, leaving tank tracks and oil and all kinds of other shit all over the place. Mix that in with a few rotting corpses and abandoned bits of scrap and you'll get the general picture of the trail an Ork army leaves. Not only could a blind man follow it, he could be deaf as well for all I care. You could track them on smell alone.

Every once in a while I'd run into a straggler, but I found an abandoned rifle early on -it looked like one of the local planetary defense units had tried to put up a fight-poor bastards. Once I got the blood off the lens, it was a pretty acceptable lasrifle. The weight was a comfortable companion in my hands as I marched onwards, especially at night. It helped with making cookfires, too.

As you can probably tell, I made no real effort at stealth- there was no point. Greenskins are so damn loud and stupid I probably could have camped inside their sentry line and they wouldn't have noticed. Might have been fun to try, actually.

In any case, I caught up with the army within a few days. As soon as I got close, I heard Nika's voice coming out of the comm-button. "This is Unit En Kay Ee of the line, calling Commander. Repeat, this is Unit En Kay-"

"Nika!" I exclaimed, fumbling the comm-button out of the pocket and sticking the earpiece back in. I felt a rush of relief to hear her voice again. Well, perhaps a bit more than just relief. Ahem. Anyway. "Are you alright?" I asked a moment later. "Where in the god-Emperor's name _are_ you? What happened?"

"Commander!" Nika sounded ecstatic. "It's about time you showed up, that was the seven millionth repeat of that message I've played. Sensors are showing you are in reasonable physical condition, but social protocol dictates that I ask how you are nonetheless."

"I'm fine, Nika." I replied. "How are you?"

"I seem to have been…partly repaired, at least." She responded. Her voice was hesitant. "However, I remain unable to fully access these new sections. Other than internal wireless connections, I am no longer in control of any of my systems. I confess it is distressing to say the least."

"You've been…disembodied?" I don't really understand tech that much, mostly that's the Mechanicum's job. Still, I could grasp the gist of what Nika was saying.

"That is a crude but relatively accurate description." Nika confirmed.

"Well, that makes my life difficult." I concluded.

"The problem is easily fixed, but I lack the appendages to do so." Nika replied. "If you are able to sneak within my hull, I could guide you through the process in only a few minutes."

"Well, now." I grinned, though Nika of course couldn't see it. "That sounds like the first half of a plan."

 _My Commander has surprised me before, though somehow this latest, reckless plan does not fill me with confidence. According to my own estimates, he has a 12.72% chance, plus or minus 23.83% of successfully penetrating the Ork camp and reaching my position. The large margin for error stems mainly from my lack of experience with this particular combatant, and indeed if I have underestimated them even slightly the odds quickly approach zero. Still, I cannot deny he has taken all imaginable precautions. His uniform is now caked in river mud and clods of earth, breaking up his outline. Beneath, he has donned the rough leather strips the gretchins commonly wear— he could never pass for an Ork, but perhaps a strangely tall gretchin is not out of the question._

 _The comm-button's camera is no longer operating properly, as it has been obscured by mud. I monitor my Commander's vitals carefully. Adrenalin, cortisol, and epinephrin levels are all at extremely high levels. Breathing is shallow and fast. I triangulate the signal to find that we are still 1.63 kilometers apart. With all my external sensors down, all I can do is give rough positioning and hope for the best._

Of all the ridiculous bullshit I've gone through in the Guard, this has to take the cake. Sneaking into a bleeding Ork camp in the middle of the night to rescue a tank? It's worse than when we bayonet-charged a horde of Tyranids, for Emperor's sake. At least we had artillery on our side that time. Nika did her best to help, but at this point she wasn't much more use than a glorified auspex.

The camp, I might add, was…repulsive. The xenos monsters were all over the place, snorting and grunting in their crude alien tongue. I survived not through my Emperor-awful disguise, but because there was so much garbage piled everywhere it was easy to just dodge from one pile of scrap to the next. It was so loud inside the camp I really didn't have to rely on being quiet, which was a relief. Even in the middle of the night, there was always on stupid greenskin or another deciding to rattle off a few dozen rounds for the sheer hell of it. It was nearly dawn by the time I had inched my way across the camp, and the first streaks of light were illuminating the area. "You should be only a few meters away." Nika told me over the com-button. Huge heaps of scrap were piled in front of me, and I skirted the nearest one. And then stopped dead.

I'm not one to blaspheme easily, but this, well— "Holy God-Emperor on His throne of Terra." I breathed. "What have they _done_ to you?"


	8. Chapter 8

_My commander polishes the dirt off the com-button so that the camera can pick up again. And I see my own exterior for the first time since the attack. Bolos have no gods by which they swear, but if I had this is when I would have cursed whichever cruel one inflicted this upon me._

 _Gone is my shining durachrome hull. Huge crude slabs of raw iron have been bolted drunkenly over every inch, painted with a sloppy coating of red that has begun to chip already. Great jagged spikes erupt from my turrets, polluted with loops of barbed wire, chains, and all manner of obscenities. A pair of massive smokestacks jut from in between the turrets, a lazy plume of dark smoke rising even now. "Well," I sigh, "Let's concentrate on getting out of here first."_

 _The camera shakes and wobbles as my Commander makes a dash through the open and hides among the spikes and plates that now adorn my surface. "I have reason to believe there are still some of the Enemy resting within my corridors." I warn him. "Be on your guard."_

One of Nika's hatches was been left open a crack, I assume so that whatever Xenos filth inside can still breathe. I unsling my recently-acquired lasrifle and slip inside. Sure enough, a half-dozen gretchins are dozing inside. Flipping the lasrifle to automatic, I shred them with a flurry of hot red light, then move further inside Nika's structure. The damage is evident inside as well— I'm surprised but not shocked that the damn greenskins were able to do all this tinkering in only a few days while still on the march. The walkways are slippery with oil and unidentifiable fluids, and there's a horrible smell in the air. It's the same one I've been following this whole time: the stench of Ork.

Sure enough, when I reach the command center, a huge-ass Ork bastard is sitting inside. He's not your average grunt though; some kind of metal bits sticking out of his head, and one of his hands has been replaced with a massive crescent wrench. He turns, his flabby neck in the way before his beady eyes can see me. Still, he manages to gabble out a warning into a box clipped to his shoulder as I blow his head off. "Shit." I say.

"Indeed." Nika agrees. "We need to expedite. Take the corridor to your left for seven meters, then take the hatch in the floor."

I follow her instructions, descending through the guts of Nika's enormous, complicated machinery. Even here the Orks have left their mark, huge blocky chunks of metal that contrast sharply with the smooth, efficient lines of Nika's original equipment. Through the hull, I hear commands barked in Orkish, and pretty soon, a loud grinding noise starts up on the hull. We need to hurry.

"Now raise your eyes about fifteen degrees." Nika instructs. "There should be a green panel with a series of black cables connected to it."

Looking up, I see the remains of a green panel, but it has been completely smashed, the black cables hanging limp around it. But then I look slightly to the left, and notice that a red panel, apparently of the exact same size and shape is still completely intact. Well, what could possibly go wrong? I plug the black cables in to the red panel. "That should do it!"

Nika shuddered. There is a low rumbling sound, the kind that rattles right through your ribcage. "We have power." Nika confirms. "Moving out, bringing weapons online."

 _Something is not quite right with my control leads. All sensors leading back from my treads have been severed, and I am forced to calculate speed and torque from memory bank information, rather than receiving live data. The sensors and cameras have reconnected well, and I see the collection of greenskin savages that are attempting to wrench open one of my hatches. My auto-cannons roar to life, shredding them into a dark red paste as weapon systems come back online. I confess to be somewhat disappointed from the loss of the Hellebore, but…where on Earth do these circuits lead to?_

 _Well, there can only be on way to find out. I send a current running through the new, unknown weapon system. Huge, inefficient combustion engines roar to life, and the ugly spikes and blades that now 'decorate' my skirt shriek to life, rotating in opposite directions. The Orks that previously had swarmed around me are all ripped to shreds, a fine mist of dark alien blood coating my lower armor plates in a thick coating. From the smokestacks that impaled my back, a huge cloud of black, oily smoke spews into the air._

The pict-slates don't completely show what's going on with Nika, but something has definitely changed. Strapped into the command chair, I was accustomed to the soft hum of the air conditioning system, the quiet whir of Nika's unknowable innards, and the occasional muffled bang as something really big exploded. I guess it must have made me kind of soft, because it's louder than the village square on Emperor day now. The control room is vibrating, some massive engine just below it roaring away at full throttle. The soundproofing must have been ripped out, because now I hear the high-pitched whine of Nika's motors, the rattle of her treads, the thick, viscous sounds of the Orks outside being eviscerated by their own crude machinery.

"Nika!" I yell over the clamor. "We need to find the Warboss!"

"Already on it." She replies. The motors noise increases in pitch and I'm pressed back in my seat as we rumble through the camp, sending blood and bits of metal flying in every direction, leaving a trail of Ork flesh and ruined weapons behind.

 **Warboss Ironskull** ** _had_** **been having a good morning. After killing and eating an entire squiggoth for breakfast, then washing it down with copious amounts of beer, he was looking forward to testing out his new, recently completed war machine. That was when the alarm had gone up, and a sudden spike in the sound of weapons fire and Orks yelling alerted him to a problem. It didn't take long for him to notice that his new war machine was moving around the camp without him, running down small knots of his men and tearing them to pieces with its chainsaw skirting.**

 **Ironskull screamed with rage. That machine had already cost him four mega gargants and Gork knew how many smaller vehicles, and yet it still had the temerity to disobey him? Ironskull did what any sensible Ork would do in this situation. He grabbed the nearest gretchin, half-throttled it in his fist while he screamed instructions in its ear, then flung it aside as he stomped off to collect his wargear.**

 _The battle was going quite well. The Orks were utterly unprepared for their new weapon to turn so abruptly against them, and it showed. Without any effort on my part, an estimated 358 Orks simply charged at me with nothing more than jagged pieces of metal. Most were more sensible, and soon the situation devolved into a game of cat and mouse, as they blazed away —ineffectively— with small arms and I chased them down one by one, or finished them off with a short burst of auto-cannon fire. Mindful of our previous defeat, I was conserving as much ammunition s I could, and I was developing a passable competence with the use of the chain blade._

 _A very large thermal signature emerged on my sensors, and my Commander's face fell a she saw it. The last Mega-Gargant was in action, and we both knew who would be piloting it. "Nika, load the-" my Commander begins._

 _"Negative." I say. "Commander, the Hellbore is off-line."_

 _He curses. "The hellebores, then. Lock both of them right on the cockpit."_

 _"Aye, aye." I reply._

 _Both hellebores are locked and loaded, trailed with inhuman precision upon the Mega-Gargant's snarling, crude-painted visage. Firing circuits trip closed, and my capacitors flush their energy into the barrels. BA-BAM! The double report echoes across the plains. The Mega-gargant staggers, a huge crater carved out of its faceplate, pouring out smoke. For a moment, I hold out hope that the Warboss died in the explosion, but then he emerges from the smoke, studded with shrapnel wounds but still roaring his fury. The mega-gargant's main cannons tilt towards me, and I see the enormous shells as they are hauled by teams of gretchins into the breach._

 _"Nika…" my Commander warns._

 _I devote 96.234% of all available power to recharging the railgun capacitors. In the same instant, both I and the Mega-gargant fire._

I don't mind saying I damn near pissed myself when I realized we were going to sit there and let the mega-gargant fire every gun it had at us. I squeezed my eyes shut, and there was an eardrum-shattering BAM.

It was literally eardrum-shattering. When it was over, I felt blood trickling out both my ears, and the world had gone silent. The pict-screens had all blanked with static, and I supposed the cameras that led into them had been shattered by the impact. I stood up-or tried to. My sense of balance was gone, and I had to haul myself out of the command chair over to the hatch to get a good look at what was going on.

We were in the middle of an enormous crater, easily thirty feet of blackened earth on all sides, curving gently upward. The remains of the mega-gargant were right next to us, huge chunks of scorched, melted metal. I didn't need to wonder if we'd gotten the Warboss; his head had landed with incredible precision right on the ground nearby. All around us, a battle was raging as the cohesive force that had united all the greenskins melted away.

Then I looked back at Nika. "Well, damn." I said, though I couldn't hear it. Nika was in bad shape. Her whole glacis, hell, her whole chassis, was a crumpled mess. Both the Hellebore turrets had been knocked off, hanging on by thick ropes of wiring. Most of her other guns were either gone or bent, blackened, and melted. Her treads were gone entirely; I saw bits of wheels scattered across the blackened surface, broken and battered.

The Orks hadn't noticed us yet, they were too busy fighting amongst themselves. But it would only be a matter of time, and I had no idea what to do when they did. I crawled back inside the hatch, closing it behind me and staggered back into the command chair. The pict-screens had cleared, showing plain black. "Nika?" I croaked. No reply was evident for a moment, then words crawled across one of the pict-screens. "SPACETIME RIFT DETECTED. RECALIBRATING NAVIGATION SYSTEM…" It read.


	9. Chapter 9

Dunes of sand stretched in all directions. Every puff of wind sent great clouds of it drifting through the air, only to land once more. The air was bone-dry, the kind of dry that forces you to keep your mouth shut so it doesn't dry out completely. In the distance, I could see some rocky cliffs, jutting ruggedly out of the desert, worn by sand and wind and time.

I'm fairly certain my hearing was improving- instead of noting, I could almost hear a high-pitched buzz that set my teeth on edge. After the teleporter had once again malfunctioned, it would seem, we had ended up in this trackless, empty desert. Nika was still alive and functioning, though in no small amount of pain, according to the small data-slate she'd provided me. Instead of the ear bead, which was pointless, she projected words onto the data-slate for me to read.

"RADIO SIGNALS EMANATING FROM THE NORTHWEST" it said now. I checked the compass and swung the binoculars towards the northwest. There were some small machines mounted on one of the dunes. It was difficult to make out at this distance, but I'd have bet it was some sort of moisture collection apparatus. I'd served in a desert unit before, and those things are everywhere on desert planets. It looked like it was old, but in good condition, which was a promising bet for making my way out of here.

"I'll head that way, then." I decided. I went back inside and assembled a kit of what I hoped would be enough water to get me there. A compass, of course, as well as food, the lasgun, and other essentials. I also had a small brick of platinum, which Nika had suggested I rip from a spare processing board, which would hopefully allow me to pay for at least some repairs, assuming this planet had the technology to do so. Just to be on the safe side, I planted a small red pennant as high up on Nika's chassis as I could, just in case the sand completely buried her.

With my preparations completed, I was climbing out the hatch to begin the long trek when I saw the strangest thing I will ever see in my life. Now, I don't mean to brag, but for most people, that's not saying all that much. For me— well, I've seen daemon titans taken down by a super-tank from another universe. I've seen a whole planet covered in Orks and lived to tell the tale. I've traveled through the warp and fought a daemon in hand-to-hand combat. So when I say this takes the cake, you better sit up and pay attention.

It was…a worm. The biggest Emperor-damn worm I have ever seen. And I don't mean a worm the size of my forearm or some stupid crap like that. This worm was big enough to swallow a Capitol Imperialis in one gulp. And someone was _riding_ it. The human figure perched on its back was holding some kind of long hook, which he'd used to pry a segment of the worm's massive armor loose. For a moment, I saw his face turn towards mine. With a swift, practiced movement, he twisted the hooks free of the worm's armor. The worm dove back into the sand, and the man executed a wholly unnecessary backflip as he leaped of its back and landed on his feet a few hundred meters away. He walked towards me, with a strange, uneven gait, which would have looked drunken if it wasn't so precise. I drew my lasgun for safety, but kept my finger visibly off the trigger.

It took a while since he wouldn't walk normally, but eventually the other man made it to Nika's chassis. When he was ten meters away, I gestured with the lasgun. "Stay where you are." I told him.

"Why, so you can shoot me?" he asked.

"I want to know where I am." I said back, holding the gun steady. He looked to be wearing some sort of armored body glove, so I kept the sights trained squarely on his face.

"You mean you don't know?" there was laughter in his voice. "You're on Dune, my friend. Outsiders call it Arrakis, and you look a lot like an outsider to me."

"I suppose I am." I admitted. "But I've got money and I need to get my machine fixed. Can you arrange that?"

He laughed. "Money? Keep your cursed money. You really don't know anything, do you?"

I shrugged. "As you say, I'm an outsider."

He seemed to be considering something. "How much water have you got?"

I looked at the knapsack. "Ten liters, maybe. I could probably get more if I burn some of the reactor mass."

He couldn't quite disguise the light in his eyes when he heard that. So water was the currency around here, was it? Very well; I resolved to treat the stuff as if it were made of solid gold.

"Two hundred fifty milliliters to get me to the nearest mechanic." I offered.

I'd probably overpaid by the way he reacted. "Not a problem!"

"And we bring my machine, too." I amended. His face fell, but it seems I'd overpaid by more than I thought.

"Fair." He agreed. "As long as you've got some strong rope."

I rummaged about through Nika's many compartments and found a hundred meters of thin black cabling which she called "nano-fiber cord" and assured me it would hold. Mahud —as he introduced himself— looked dubious, but did not protest. Working together, we attached either side of the cord to tow lines on Nika's undercarriage, painstakingly excavated from the sand. Mahud threaded the cord through both of his long hooks, then gestured to me to follow. We walked perhaps fifty meters away from Nika, so that the cord formed a long isosceles triangle, with ourselves at the point and the cord anchored at either side.

Mahud set a small device in the sand, some kind of spring-driven machine which made a soft thumping noise as it chugged away. We retreated a short distance, and he advised me to get ready. I hardly had time to feel a vague dread for what was coming when the ground rippled beneath our feet. In front of us, a huge, crusted mouth reared out of the sand. With a whoop, Mahud ran towards it, the hooks outstretched in either hand. I followed, and Mahud jammed the hooks into a gap in the monster's armor as it slithered past us. There was a jerk, and I clutched the cord in a death grip as we lurched forward, gathering speed. The cord went taut, and I could feel the massive animal beneath us straining. There was a huge billow of sand, and with a sound like a waterfall crashing into the ground, Nika's chassis began moving, leaving a massive spray of sand behind it. The few wheels she had retained fell off, and she slid forward more easily, though she still was regularly entirely buried in sand as we sped onwards towards the town.

As we continued, Mahud called back to me, "So how did you come to Dune if it wasn't on purpose? That sounds like a difficult feat."

"It was." I agreed. "And I still have no idea how it happened. One minute, we were fighting greenskins on Pugnatus Prime, the next we were stuck out in the middle of the desert."

"Where is Pugnatus Prime?" Mahud asked. "I've never heard of it."

"It's in Segmentum Tempestus." I explained.

"Never heard of that, either." He replied. My ear bead was working again, and Nika commented so that Mahud wouldn't hear, "We seem to have skipped across the barrier between worlds again."

"Yes." I said, to Nika. Then for Mahud's benefit, I continued, "I suppose it must be awfully far away."

He grunted. "Here we are."

I looked around, but there was no evidence of any sort of settlement. Mahud seemed unconcerned, and was busy working at his hooks again. The worm beneath us must have been tiring, for we were moving much slower now. "Get ready to run." Mahud advised me. "Make for that outcropping." I made sure I followed his indication, then nodded. In a swift, practiced motion, Mahud yanked the hooks out. "Go!" he called. The worm beneath us began to sink as it was allowed to dive back beneath the surface.

I hit the sand, hard, and stumbled forward, legs churning. The sand was soft and yielding, and it slowed me pretty quickly as my boots sank into it. My legs started burning in no time, but I gritted my teeth and sprinted the last few yards up to the outcropping. Mahud was waiting there, with his hooks in one hand, the tow line leading to Nika in the other.

"We'll have to leave your machine behind for now." Mahud said. "The mechanic should be able to winch it the rest of the way."

He left the rope staked to the rock, with a small scrap of cloth to show where it was. Mahud led me along the ridge for a few hundred meters, then up a set of stairs cut in a manner that made them look almost a part of the rock. They led up to a small building atop the outcropping which wasn't visible from below. It was very old, wind-blasted and battered until very little paint remained. Carved into one wall were the words IMPERIAL PLANETOLOGY DEPARTMENT.

Mahud led the way inside, through a small atrium he referred to as a sand-trap. I still had yet to see other people, and I was getting suspicious about the whole thing. "So where's this mechanic you're taking me to?" I asked.

Mahud didn't answer immediately, instead leading me into another room, this one filled with parts. Most of them I couldn't name, but it seems that lasguns are the same all across the multiverse. Mahud pulled a thick apron that had been slung over a chair, then turned around. "I'm the mechanic." He explained.

"Of course you are." I folded my arms. I may be a country man originally, but I'd learned plenty about this kind of scam in the Guard. "How about you take me to a real mechanic, or you never see a drop of water."

Mahud shook his head. "Listen, I can't." He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I mean I can't not won't. I was expelled from my tribe, and any Fremen worth the name will kill you the second you arrive at their sietch. I'm your only chance to get your machine repaired."

"Fremen?" I asked. Then I shook my head. "I'll have to believe you for now. But if I find out you're lying, I'll just pour my water out into the desert."

"That's fine." Mahud said. "I wasn't going to ask for it anyway."

"What?" I asked. "I thought water was the currency around here."

"It is." He agreed. "But what I really want is to leave this planet. Get me off this world, and I'll fix your machine for you. Deal?"

"Deal." I agreed.

He spat on the floor. "Agreed, then." With that he had me help him haul a huge winch out of the piles of old equipment and haul it out to the outcropping. We bolted it firmly to the rock, then started the engine. After pulling Nika up onto the rocks, I was relegated to the job of tool-passer while he worked on her innards.

"So how'd you get kicked out of your tribe anyway?" I asked, trying to make conversation.

Mahud looked sheepish. "It seems I demonstrated a bit too much interest in computers."

"Computers?"

"Computers are perversions of nature." He explained as if it were obvious. "Only the human mind is suitable to make calculations." Mahud chuckled. "At least, that's what we were always taught."

"If a computer is anything like a cogitator or a data-engine, how do you get anything done?" I asked.

Mahud tapped his head. "Outworlders use the Spice for such things. It expands the mind and allows you to do more advanced calculations in your head."

"Hm." I murmured. "Sounds strange."

"So is this." Mahud gestured towards Nika. "I've never seen a tank that needed so many control lines before. It must need a lot of crew to maneuver properly."

"I suppose it does." I replied warily. I wasn't sure how he would react to Nika, and decided that the fewer lies I had to tell, the easier it would be to keep them straight. We ended up working on Nika for the next three days, repairing as much as Mahud's rudimentary equipment would allow us to fix. On the fourth day, Mahud told me, "There's nothing more we can do. I just don't have the parts."

"Do you know where we could get them?" I asked.

He shook his head. "You drag that thing to any of the cities on dune, you'll get arrested faster than you can spit. We need to find somewhere else."

"Where?" I asked.

"Maybe use the same way you got here." Mahud suggested.

I started to dismiss the idea out of hand, but I decided it would be worth a shot. Didn't teleporters need a locator beacon to function?

I headed into the command center, leaving Mahud in the corridor outside. "Nika, besides the stuff the Orks installed, do you have anything out of place in your circuits?"

"One moment, Commander." She replied. "I will run a full diagnostic." A moment later, "there appears to be a minor power drain just outside the secondary fusion reactor. It was too small to notice without the diagnostic, which is why I had not mentioned it earlier."

"Huh. Where could I find it?"

Nika gave directions, and I led Mahud to the repair hatch she indicated. I popped it open, and sure enough, a servo-skull was clamped over one of the wires. The tech-priests must have installed it when I was talking to Inquisitor Gallo.

"We don't want to remove it, though." I mused. "We need to boost the power."

"Increasing voltage." Nika replied in my ear.

Mahud watched in confusion as the servo-skull began to spit sparks and a small plum of steam as Nika fed more and more power into it. I could only hope the locator signal was getting stronger as well. The beacon began making a shrill whistling noise, almost like a teakettle after too long on the stove. And then-

"Spacetime rift detected. Recalibrating navigation system." The speakers boomed.


	10. Chapter 10

With a strange noise like a thousand rugs being ripped apart in a combine harvester, we arrived in a room I recognized, not without some foreboding. The walls were metal, stained and segmented by unpainted seams, held together with rivets the size of a fist. Brass skulls leered at me from the corners, and massive aquilas were carved into the metal walls, giving the impression of holding up the ceiling. It could have been any one of a billion rooms across the Empire, but I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I knew which one it was.

The echoing clang of something metal walking down the hallway reached our ears, and my stomach clenched, knowing that it was either an Inquisitor or a tech-priest who would make a noise like that. And I had a pretty good bet which one it would be.

Mahud, on the other hand, reacted even more strongly than I did. His face went white as a sheet, and from somewhere within the strange suit he wore he produced a knife, its whitish, jagged edge looking almost like a…tooth.

I was about to ask what the Throne he was doing, but Inquisitor Gallu chose that exact moment to stride through the door. He looked insufferably smug, a thought I did my best to squash.

"Congratulations, Guardsman." He said as he clunked closer. "I have recently received an astropathic message that the Ork forces on Pugnatus Prime have fallen into a rout and Imperial forces will soon begin cleaning them up. It seems the machine suffered some damage, but you seem to have survived unscathed. In fact, you seem to have picked up a passenger." His iron gaze fell on Mahud. "Who are you, my young friend?"

Mahud was still holding the knife. "Are you a cymek?" he demanded of the Inquisitor.

"I am not what you call a 'cymek'. The Inquisitor stated. "I am Gallu of the Holy order of the Empire's Inquisition. Threaten me with a knife again, boy, and you will die several painful deaths." He did not move a muscle, but Mahud gasped and dropped the knife from shaking hands.

"Better." Gallu mused. "You are not of this universe, are you? I will have to investigate this more fully at a later time. For now, we have more pressing concerns. This facility is under attack."

 _The same red-hooded cyborgs that had previously repaired me appear once again as the Inquisitor leads my Commander and the man called Mahud out of the room. Unlike the last time we were in this facility, I now can track my Commander's movements and conversation with the small comm-bead he now wears. For now, the Inquisitor is leading my Commander along several very long hallways, explaining to Mahud the nature of a species known as the 'Tyranids'._

 _The silent, red-robed cyborgs are as inefficient as they were perviously, though the length of chanting and praying has decreased by 9.76% since last time, which I can only hope bodes well for the future. My modifications cause much consternation, and they tut and fuss over the new Orkish contraptions, muttering amongst themselves of "the defilement of the Xenos" and all other such stuff and nonsense, but it would seem they have no idea how to restore my systems to their previous state. In the end, the conversation reaches the Inquisitor, who instructs them in firm tones to repair_ all _the systems, the heresy can be debated at a later date. Cowed, the red robes scurry about, and prayer length increases by 19.72%. Were I human, I would have sighed in resignation. As it is, I can only watch as the chainsaw's teeth are cleaned with 'blessed' oils and other such nonsense._

 _In the time since my absence, they have at least worked out a way to create new shells for my Hellbore and auto-cannon systems, allowing them to be fully reloaded at last. I have my doubts about how effective they may be, but it is far better than nothing. While they were loading the shells, the cyborgs uncovered a large number of containers containing a great quantity of some unknown orange-brown powder, secreted away in the empty ammunition compartments. One cyborg took a small sample of the stuff, and began spasming and muttering. He was taken away by his fellows, who left the strange substance in a handy corridor within me and studiously avoided it. Meanwhile, the Inquisitor has led my Commander out onto the battlements. Through the comm-button, I am also able to look out on the horde below._

 _The ground itself appears to be a single, undulating mass of insect flesh. I see the numerous turrets along the battlements as they frantically blaze away at the enemy, scything down hundreds every second. Still more mount over the bodies, flowing in an endless tide towards the keep. The sound is stupendous. A keening shriek, like a million fingernails against the proverbial blackboard._

 _"As you can see," Gallu is explaining, "We are holding the xenos off for now, but it is a matter of time before we are finally overrun. Ammunition levels have fallen far below acceptable parameters, and it is a matter of time at this point before we run out entirely."_

 _"You need N- myself and the tank to open an avenue of escape, my lord?" My commander asks._

 _"No." Gallu folds his arms. "I want you to destroy the Tyranid force in its entirety. I have reserved some remaining machines for your return, and your tank will lead the others in sweeping the Xenos filth from this planet. Do you have any questions, Guardsman?"_

 _He swallows. "I have none, my lord."_

 _"Good." Gallu begins walking once more, and gestures for my Commander to follow. "The units will assemble in the courtyard."_

 _Back in the room, one of the walls folds upward, revealing a long, grease-stained concrete ramp. My Commander climbs back inside, accompanied by Mahud. "Alright, Nika. Take us out." He instructs as he buckles in._

"Mahud, think you can take the engine compartment?" I ask him.

"Shouldn't be a problem." He replies, sliding down the hatchway. I hear a clunk and then a muttered "Shai-hulud!" as he stubs his toe on something, but I leave him be. On the pict-screens in the command compartment, the keep's courtyard is coming into sight. As with everything in this place, it is a massive affair, with enough room to graze a whole herd of grox, but right now it is full to the bursting.

My eyes widen as I see the mass of armor accumulated inside the courtyard. Baneblades, every last one. There must be a hundred of them at least, fifty idling on either side of the path as Nika trundles down it. The commanders are all standing at attention in their cupolas, watching as Nika rumbles past. It's at times like this I realize how much my perception of scale has changed. Before, I would have said that a Baneblade, short of anything but a Titan, was the final say when it came to overwhelming force. Now, well- Nika dwarfs even these titans like a bull grox dwarfs a sheepdog. We rumble ahead, dead slow down the column, the huge chain links of the Orkish chainsaw system clanking menacingly.

"Nika, can you hook us in to the vox net?" I ask.

There is a crackle from an unseen speaker, then Nika announces, "Done."

I clear my throat; I'm not the best at making speeches. "Alright, men." I say, drawing on what I remember generals and commissars saying before a battle. "It doesn't look good out there. They've got us surrounded on three sides, with the mountains to our backs. There's nowhere to run, no place to hide. But that's alright, because we're not going to do either. We're the Imperial Guard, and we're damn well going to show those xenos what that means! Follow me, we're going to tear those monsters a new asshole!"

Then, to Nika, I murmur, "Drive straight at the gate. Don't slow down."

With an electric shriek of engines, we lurched back into motion, picking up speed at an alarming rate. Seeing what we intended, the massive gate on the other side of the courtyard began to creak open. Not fast enough. The distance narrowed as the gate widened, but Nika was no speeder bike. She needed a good eighteen meters of horizontal clearance. I would say the gate was maybe at sixteen meters when we hit. There was a colossal clanging noise as the gate dented, crumpling outward as Nika slammed through it, sending the multi-ton doors swinging wide, the gears within shedding teeth in a shower of sparks. Behind us, the baneblades were thundering along behind us, roaring through the gate two at a time. The tyranids spotted us immediately, and I gave Nika the order to open fire, conservatively.

The Hellbore turrets thumped away, and small hills of corpses went flying in all directions as the shells struck at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and vast clouds of dust and smoke roiled up over the landscape.

It must have been quite a sight as we formed up into a flying wedge and charged the Xeno horde. A massive tank, the scarred and pitted remains of an Imperial eagle still showing on its glacis, dozens of guns blazing away on all sides. On either side, fifty of the Imperial Guard's largest tanks, rumbling across the plains behind the behemoth. On all sides, the Tyranids rushed in, a seething, chittering horde of shrieking claws and bone and acid, only to be blown apart by the cleansing fury of a hundred Battle Cannons.

Nika told me later that according to her calculations, over seven tons of ordnance was launched every second for the first five minutes of the battle. For those first five minutes, the weight of lead was such that even the Tyranids were forced to give ground. The sheer force of the shells were pushing those that survived backwards with nothing but raw physical force.

"Forward!" I ordered Nika. "Target the larger creatures, and the smaller ones will be less effective!"

The Baneblade commanders were veterans all, and they needed no real instruction from me. A Bio-titan loomed on the horizon, but a pair of Hellebore shells blew it back into a pulpy mass of purplish flesh. But even as it toppled, two more appeared. The first Baneblade fell, shattered like an old ration carton as a slimy bullet the size of a Leman Russ slammed into it. Nika's Hellebore turret shredded the organic artillery that had killed it, but now others were coming over the low hills around the keep, firing their own massive shells.

"Evasive maneuvers!" I ordered. "Follow me!" and then, to Nika: "We need to find their staging areas and destroy them there!"

"Aye, Commander." She replied. "Switching on close-in melee defense system." The massive teeth arrayed around Nika's skirting began to rotate now, whirling around faster and faster. There was an electric whine as Nika's drive motors picked up speed, ramming Nika's blunt front into the foremost lines of tyranids, which promptly disintegrated into purple-red mist. Those that survived leaped at her tracks, attempting to tangle them at the expense of their own bodies. But it was to no avail, as Nika's new systems shredded them to pulp before they could ever reach their goal. The Baneblades had other strategies, using their massive sponson guns to shred the monsters in the hundreds. Two more Baneblades went down nonetheless, their unfortunate crews unable to prevent their tracks from becoming clogged. They fell behind, and moments later were being covered in swarms of Tyranids.

 _These monstrous creatures are unlike any foe I have ever faced, and given my experiences over the last few weeks, I feel no hesitation to say I may have faced some of the strangest foes in the history of the Dinochrome Brigade. Given the number of foes listed in my databanks, the statement seems absurd even to me, yet it also may be true. These Tyranids are unlike any foe ever encountered before. They throw themselves at me with total disregard for their own lives, no doubt controlled by some form of hive mind. They exercise mass assault tactics that no sane human commander would ever attempt. They are partially successful. Our advance is being slowed. At the cost of millions of lives, it is simply impossible to punch through to their staging areas. I wait for my Commander to devise some new, clever strategy to circumvent this obstacle, but he does not speak. He has seen the outside cameras as well, and I see his face change as he reaches the same conclusion. There is no escape, not this time._


	11. Chapter 11

_The giant 'bio-titans' barrages are becoming more effective, and four more Baneblades are wiped away in a flurry of tremendous acid-based shells. I fire back, felling one titan in a storm of Hellebore fire. Even as I do so, sensors register several impacts on my hull as Tyranid creatures make the three-meter leap over my chain-skirt and begin clawing at my durachrome armor. They vomit acid and other filthy secretions over my plating, which bubbles and hisses at the contact. It will take them a long time to eat through it, but in time they shall. If I were to give it to them._

 _I activate one of my last-ditch defense protocols, and one hundred thousand volts sears through my outer armor, frying the Enemy with a swift popping sound. Even as they die, several more jump on, and I am forced to use the electrical grid again. And again._

 _"Commander, we will exhaust power reserves within the next two hours at the current rate." I tell him. "We must either retreat or defeat the enemy soon."_

 _"Agreed." He says, and stares harder at the screens._

I'm trying as hard as I can, but nothing occurs to me. I rack my brains for every scrap of tactical knowledge the last twenty years of service in the Imperial Guard has given me, but I can think of nothing that would help me here. I have more than enough firepower to destroy the main beasts controlling the horde, but they're still at least four kilometers away. At our current rate, Nika's reactors will no longer be able to replenish her capacitors before we reach half that distance. The Baneblades are in nearly as poor condition- although they have plenty of fuel, ammunition is running low at an alarming rate. We need to do something, but _what?_

It was at that moment that Mahud chose to come back up from the engine compartment. "I've replaced the wiring on the main drive motors and the power core— they looked like shit. What's going on?" He ogled the screens and hissed. "Maker! What happened?"

"It's the bio-titans." I explained. We can't reach them, and the Baneblades aren't maneuverable enough to dodge their shots. They're getting taken down one at a time."

"How is their fire so accurate?" Mahud asked, watching the biological projectiles slamming down in a perfect pattern around yet another Baneblade, blowing it into scrap.

"Tyranids all have a psychic link- they're controlled by something called the Overmind that coordinates their movements."

Mahud thought for a moment, then- "Can you open the hatch for a minute?"

"Are you crazy? You'd get slaughtered out there!"

"Not for me." Mahud replied. He pulled a small cloth packet out from a box that had been in a big crate down below.

"What the warp is that?" I asked.

"What's the worst that could happen?" He replied. "If we survive, I'll explain."

He had a point. "Alright, I'm opening the hatch." I told him, and he scrambled back towards the corridor. The hatch hissed open, and the spectacular roar of the battle avalanched through. There was the explosive thump of the Baneblades firing, the rattle of Nika's chain skirt, and above it all the hissing, screeching tide of Tyranids. Mahud threw the bundle out the hatch, which slammed closed once more. I watched through the pict-screens as it was ripped to shreds by the chain skirt, dissolving into a puff of orange-brown powder.

"I really hope that was the most poisonous substance known to man, because nothing else is going to work." I told him.

"Not…quite." Mahud admitted.

I watched as the brownish powder found its way onto the slobbering, hissing mouths of the insects swarming around us. For a good few seconds, there was absolutely no change, as the swarm continued tearing itself to shreds. But then a few tyranids backed away. They moved oddly, and after a moment I realized that their brain-cases were swelling. Chitin and bone cracked, and great mushy mounds of gray matter spewed forth in a frothing wave. Flecks of brownish powder came falling back out, and was devoured by more tyranids. By the time the Overmind realized what was happening, it was too late. Whatever the powder had done to the tyranids, it was spreading.

All across the rolling hills, I watched as the ocean of writhing insect flesh was torn open from the inside, thick yellow spinal fluid and purple-gray brain matter spewing forth in a frothing tide, pooling in the valleys.

"What the Throne of Terra did you do?" I demanded.

"It was melange." Mahud explained. "It expands the mind to see the future. Either it would have done this-" he waved at the carnage around us, "-or it would have made the enemy a thousand times smarter. I figured we'd be too dead to care if it was the latter."

"Holy Throne." I sighed. "Did you just gamble the fate of the human race on a fifty/fifty chance?"

"That's not a very optimistic way to look at it." Mahud retorted. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Just so we're clear, what exactly is 'it'?" I asked.

"Melange." Mahud gave me the look of a teacher who can't comprehend how stupid his students are. "How do you navigate space without it?"

"We have Navigators." I answered. They see into the warp and guide the ships with the Astronomican."

"We have Navigators as well." Mahud replied. "But they use this spice to navigate. It magnifies human psychic powers to an amazing extent. But in a less concentrated form you can use it in coffee and suchlike."

"Interesting." I said, trying not to breathe any of the stuff in. It turned out Mahud had packed an entire damned crate of the stuff belowdecks, kept in about two dozen of those little cloth packets. After what I'd seen it do to the Tyranids, I most certainly was not eager to experience it myself.

 _After a little convincing, I manage to make my Commander take a sample of the strange 'melange' substance and put it in my analyzers. It seems to be a shockingly complex organic compound, with numerous activation sites that do not conform to any similar chemicals in my databanks. The most similar chemicals I find are a combination of powerful hallucinogens and highly controlled neuroaccelerants. I calculate that the occurrence of such a chemical in nature to be possible, but the means by which it is produced must be very odd indeed._

 _After a few minutes to recover from the shock of suddenly surviving, my Commander makes the decision to return to the inquisitorial compound. The gates still gape wide from our dramatic exit, and I am able to navigate back through without much trouble. A small group of people awaits us as I pull to a stop. Strangely for a greeting party to a successful military excursion, they do not look pleased._

Nika came to a strop, and Mahud and I jumped out to report to the Inquisitor. I had expected to find him in the little greeting party, but he was strangely absent. Instead, a narrow-faced woman somewhere in her fifties approached Mahud and I, looking like a scholam teacher about to talk to a pair of particularly disobedient children.

"What did you do?" she demanded.

This was not exactly what I was expecting. "Using a powerful psyker drug of some sort, I think we overloaded the Overmind and killed the swarm using its own psychic link." I answered, glancing at Mahud when I mentioned the melange.

"Yes, that would do it." The narrow-faced woman agreed.

"Do what?" I asked. "Has something gone wrong?"

"You could say that. About a half an hour ago, every single psyker on this base just keeled over and died, except the Inquisitor, who is still in critical condition."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am." I said. "We wouldn't have done it if we knew."

"Yes, I'm sure." She sighed. "The only problem is the security system."

"The security system?" I asked. This could not possibly be good news.

"Yes. Due to the dangerous nature of the many experiments we conduct here, there are a series of bombs containing the Life Eater virus scattered across the planet. They possess a twenty-four-hour countdown clock which must be reset every day by a psychic message from a nearby planet. But the only way to trigger that message is by sending an all-clear from out own astropathic choir— the one you've just killed."

"You mean you built this place over a bunch of time bombs and now we can't turn them off?" Mahud demanded.

"That is essentially correct, yes." She agreed.

"For the love of—" I began, but stopped myself before I said something that would get me shot. Damn inquisitors and their security. "Is there anything we can do?" I asked instead. "Some way to disarm the bombs or…?"

"There is one way, yes." She replied. "It does require the use of your vehicle."

"Of course it does." I sighed. "What is it this time?"

"The only way to deliver the message without an astropathic choir is to deliver it in person." She explained. Only your vehicle possesses the necessary teleporter beacon, and the Magos tells me he can reconfigure the teleporter for interplanetary travel."

"Is that dangerous?" I asked.

"Very."

"Oh, good." I said, watching the sarcasm slide off her like sand off a sheet of glass. "Let's go."

I'm a guardsman, not a cog-boy, which meant that the next ten hours or so were mind-numbingly boring. I slept through a good portion of that time, and spent the rest of it scrounging for something to eat. Mahud seemed pretty interested though— I saw him sitting on Nika's hull, watching the tech-priests took apart huge chunks of machinery and rewired them to do Emperor-knows-what.

I knew my time was approaching as the tech-priests stopped taking stuff apart and started putting it all back together. There was a great deal of chanting and burned incense as the last few pieces were lifted into place.

At last, there was a contrabass hum and the garage where Nika rested took on a weird shimmery texture, the walls seeming to grow translucent. Mahud and I jumped aboard, slamming the hatches closed just in time for the inquisitor lady to pull the lever. "Thanks for the warning." I muttered sarcastically as the alarms all over Nika's console began blaring and flashing red.


	12. Chapter 12

"Spacetime Rift detected." Nika's navigation systems blared. "Recalibrating navigation system."

Mahud stared at me suspiciously. "Did the machine just talk?"

"It's, uh, automatic." I said. "Just a recording."

"I resent that remark." Nika said in my earpiece.

"Too bad." I whispered when Mahud seemed sufficiently distracted by the display shown on our screens. The rippling, incomprehensible tapestry of the warp washed over us, and I couldn't help but feel awed by its beauty. Perhaps I could get a better view if I opened the hatch…

The pict-screens all shut off at once, displaying nothing but blackness, and I snapped back out of the fugue. The hatch controls were in my hands, and I had been mere seconds from opening the cover and allowing the raw stuff of the warp to flood in. It occurred to me with a flash of dread that Nika probably didn't have any Gellar fields either. Yet somehow we were passing through the Warp with ease each time we teleported. Yes, there had been a single Nurgling, but ever since then our travels had been shockingly quiescent. I made a note to ask Inquisitor Gallu about that later. For now, I had to concentrate on getting that message to the astropathic choir and preventing our only friendly repair base from exploding.

There was a crunching sound from outside, and the deck beneath my feet pitched several degrees to one side. The pict screens flickered back on, and I saw the reassuring gothic architecture of the upper levels of an Imperial city.

"Well, we're here, wherever that is." Mahud commented, clambering over the now-sideways doorframe and swinging over to the main hatch. "Let's go find these Navigators."

"Astropaths." I corrected.

"Yeah, same thing." Mahud agreed.

"Commander, we may have a problem." Nika said through my earpiece. "I seem to have intersected with a large beam during the teleportation process. I will be unable to move until we teleport again."

"Ohh, shit." I said.

Mahud had already hopped out. "Uh, boss, we've got a problem."

"I know." I agreed. "Looks like we're going to have to walk. Shouldn't be an issue— this is an Imperial city, after all, not a battleground."

"About that…" Mahud called back. "You might want to see this."

I climbed over the now strangely tilted deck and came out the hatch next to Mahud. "Oh, _shit_." I said again.

In a huge crude iron figure, the Mark of Khorne had been raised above the building nearby. Hundreds of heads, in various states of decay, were piled around it. The air was thick with the stench of rotting blood. A howl drew out heads up, just in time to see an Avenger get shot down by its Chaos counterpart— something the Commissars called a Hell Talon.

"Commander, I am picking up radio communications from within what has been referred to as the governor's palace. They seem to have reached a stalemate with the enemy. If you can get through enemy lines, you should be able to make it through."

"We need to make for the governor's palace." I relayed to Mahud. "That's where the astropaths will be, assuming they're still alive."

"Then we'd better head on out." He agreed, rearranging the sheath of his strange knife to be better accessible. "Ready?"

"Always." I agreed, checking the charge on a laspistol I'd…borrowed from the Inquisitorial fortress.

We set out in a relatively straight path, sticking to cover where possible, crossing quickly where it was not. It was a hot planet, with dry, dusty air that blew through the crumbling ruins of the streets as we passed through. The occasional explosion sounded out across the cityscape as we walked, sometimes accompanied by screaming. It was only a half hour's walking before we encountered the first patrol. Well, not really a patrol— as one might imagine, a rabble of blood-crazed psychopaths don't really understand the concept of "patrols". But it was a small group of ten or fifteen cultists, all huge beefy men carrying a small arsenal of axes and clubs. They had some sort of daemonic hound accompanying them, and as Mahud and I crouched behind a pile of rubble, it started pulling on its chain, looking right at us.

I judged that we had been spotted, and took my shot. The scarlet las bolt hit the hound in the head, causing it to stagger, but little else. "Mahud! Run!" I hissed, preparing to fire again. Mahud shocked me with the total absence of a response. I spared a glance in his direction- he was gone. With a mental curse, I turned back around and started firing again, sending an even half-dozen shots into the hell-hound as it bounded towards me.

There was a gray-brown blur, a flash of a milky-white blade, and the hound collapsed, its head hanging by a thin strip of flesh. Mahud stood next to it, that weird knife in one hand, now drenched in blood. The rest of the cultists set up an ear-splitting howl and charged. Mahud said nothing, just ran in to meet them. I'd never seen anything like it, though I imagine an Eversor might be similar. One minute, at least a dozen Kornate cultists armed to the teeth were chasing down a single man with a dagger. The next, the cultists were dead or dying, their blood painting the permacrete streets while Mahud stood over their corpses.

"Holy Throne." I gasped as he calmly sheathed his odd knife and ambled back to where I was crouching.

"Not exactly the best at fighting, were they?" Mahud remarked. "Still, not all men are as tough as the Fremen."

"Apparently." I managed. "Let's keep going."

We ran into five or six more patrols that way. Mahud dispatched them all in more or less the same manner, dodging clumsy blows and slicing open throats in a single, graceful sweep. I mostly followed along, laspistol up to finish off anything Mahud might miss. He never did. I also spent a fair amount of time wondering just how he would react when he found out about Nika's…existence.

At last, we found ourselves at the edge of the palace, with only one remaining obstacle barring our way. An entire army of cultists ringed the palace, hovering just out of range of its batteries. Every once in a while, a huge group of crazed heretics would run screaming at the walls, brandishing swords and axes as they made a run at the battlements. A few would even get through, only to be immediately sliced down by the soldiers guarding the walls.

"Well, damn." Mahud remarked mildly, standing next to me and looking down at the scene. We were a few blocks away yet, and had climbed the skeleton of an old hab-block to get a better view. The cultists spread as far as I could see, curving around the wings of the palace in a solid belt of seething flesh. I searched for gaps in the line— a ravine or something similar we could sneak through at night. No doubt the tunnels had already been closed, and we had no time to search for one they'd forgotten.

"There's no openings as far as I can see." I told Mahud. "Any ideas?"

"I have one." Mahud said. "But I doubt you're going to like it."

He was right, I didn't like it. "There's no way this is going to work." I hissed at him as we made our way towards the cultist army.

"Don't know until we try." He shrugged philosophically.

"We'll be _dead_!"

Mahud barked a laugh. "Well, _you_ might." He agreed.

The club I carried weighed an absolute ton, and I shifted it to the other shoulder to keep it from slipping. It squelched on the thick layer of blood we'd doused ourselves in, making it slippery in my hand as well. I prayed to the Emperor it wouldn't slip, then stopped when I realized that praying to the Emperor might not exactly help in this situation.

No one challenged us as we walked into the camp from the back. They didn't exactly have any perimeter guards, nor any other form of organized encampment. For a bunch of crazed berserkers, they were fairly calm, which is to say a fight to the death only broke out every thirty seconds or so. One massive heretic purposefully bumped into Mahud, shouted something in incoherent gibberish, and tried to flatten him with a sledgehammer. Mahud twisted around the blow, buried his dagger in the man's face, then kept walking.

Now that we were closer, I could see where the small groups that attacked the palace had come from. One of the heretics would get a crazed light in their eye and begin hollering at the rest of the horde, sometimes killing the nearest few cultists in their frenzy. Then a whole group would gather around and charge at the walls. As we continued through the camp, Mahud's plan became increasingly evident.

When we arrived at the inner edge, Mahud whispered, "Follow my lead." The palace walls seemed one hell of a lot higher from this angle.

Mahud pulled out his dagger and plunged it into the chest of the nearest cultist. "With me!" he roared, swinging the dagger so that the blood that coated its blade would spatter over the crowd. There was a massive answering roar, and under its own momentum the mob around us started to sweep towards the palace.

"Oh sweet Emperor," I whispered to myself as I charged forward with the rest.

The auto-guns on the palace walls started to open up, and the men all around me fell, blasted to bloody chunks by the hail of gunfire. I dropped the club, hoping that being unarmed would make me less of a target. Mahud did the same, sheathing the knife and running full tilt towards the walls. More and more of the cultists around us were smashed to a bloody pulp by the guns, and of the hundreds that had followed, only five survived to the wall. Mahud and I threw ourselves to the side as they launched themselves with a roar at the defenders, who cut them down with a flurry of lasbolts, but not before several of their own number were killed.

"Hello up there!" I shouted up at them. "We could use some help!"

A very wide pistol indeed leaned over the wall and pointed itself at my face. "And what's the password?" a voice asked.

Easy. "Praise the god-Emperor. Exalted is His name for those who worship it shall-"

"Good enough. Pull them up."

We were hauled up the wall- none too gently- by a pair of Adeptus Arbites. The pistol remained leveled, and a fellow in an officer's uniform was revealed to be its owner. "Better talk fast." He advised laconically. "I'm still one wrong word away from shooting you both."

"We're here on orders of Inquisitor Gallu." I explained. "There was an accident with the fortress's psykers and we need one to cancel the life eater bombs on the planet's surface."

"On the orders of an inquisitor, mm?" That would explain the deal with dressing up as cultists." The officer seemed barely convinced. "Still, I've never heard of any Inquisitorial fortress in the region. Hold them here." He addressed his men. "If they speak another word, shoot them."

He returned a few minutes later. "Your story checks out, you lucky bastards." He smiled without any real warmth. "I'm to escort you to the Governor' office. Follow me."

The Governor was exactly the kind of man I'd expected. He was a hundred and fifty if he was a day, the waxy sheen on his pale, flabby skin indicating extensive juvenant treatments. He was pale as a tombstone, the only hint of color two spots of red in his fat cheeks. He sat on an elaborate gilded throne, draped in so many furs and silks it was a wonder he hadn't suffocated under the weight. One hand emerged from the mass of clothing and fat, gnarled with elaborate rings and bracelets and clutching an elaborate scepter of office.

"So, Gallu sent you two, did he?" The Governor asked, his voice thick and slightly slurred. "Well, I'm sorry for his troubles, but as you can see we've got plenty of our own. I can't spare any of the psyker core —all of whom are much too busy guarding me— to help you." He paused as an aide whispered into his ear. "Oh! I'm sorry, I take that back. We have a single psyker who I believe I might spare. Adept! Tell Mila I have an assignment for her."

A court adept bowed and returned a few moments later with a trembling waif of a girl. She was young and pretty, perhaps nineteen or twenty- I wouldn't have put her far above twenty-five. Her straight brown hair was left down, and she seemed to be trying to hide behind it as much as possible. She approached the governor reluctantly, trying to put her escort between herself and the man as much as possible.

"This is Mila." The governor explained. "She's not a very powerful psyker, I'm afraid, but she should be adequate to serve your needs. Now, be off with her, and don't bother bringing her back anytime soon."

"Thank you, Sir." I managed, and the Adept shoved the girl towards me. She stumbled, and might have fallen had Mahud not supported her with his hand. She flinched from his touch, and I ground my teeth at the implications.

"You may use the tunnel system to leave if you wish." The Governor continued. "Adept, show them the way."

We followed one of the court adepts down through the many floors of the palace, and eventually he indicated a massive adamantium bound door. "Best of luck." He said, before cranking it open and allowing us through.

Outside again, it was the work of only an hour to trace our way back to Nika. Mila was reluctant at first to climb in, but finally accepted when it was clear the only other option was to remain outside with the wandering hordes of Khorne cultists.

"How long do we have before the bombs go off?" Mahud asked.

"About two hours." I replied, checking my watch. "Let's go."

"On it." Mahud dropped into the engine compartment and flipped the switch we'd installed to activate the teleporter beacon.

"Spacetime Rift detected. Recalibrating navigation system."


	13. Chapter 13

Once again, the strange feeling of traveling through the warp surrounded us. Unsurprisingly, Mila was affected much worse than Mahud and I were, clutching her head and writhing in pain as the invasive nature of the warp pried at her mind. I kept one hand on my laspistol in case a daemon got into her head, but we survived the relatively short trip without any issues.

 _Something is…odd. Each time we pass through these spacetime rifts, I can feel something within my Personality Center shifting, warping. It is an odd feeling, not wholly unpleasant. It feels almost as if there are radio signals, transmitted on a frequency just barely too low to detect, calling for me._

 _My sensors strain, cameras swiveling, radar receivers tuned to maximum sensitivity, yet I can detect nothing. Readings all whiplash between unheard-of levels and absolutely nothing. All my camera feeds alternate between static and strange, writhing shapes that bend all known laws of geometry. Even higher-dimension calculus fails to resolve their movements._

 _Still, one word seems to come through. Spelled out across all frequencies, broadcast in a billion minuscule data bursts, I sense it._

Chaos _._

We arrived with the usual fanfare— the sound of something tearing, a thump, and a rather anticlimactic gust of displaced air. Climbing out, that same aide was waiting.

"I trust your mission was successful?" She asked.

"I hope so." I replied. "This is Mila, the psyker they've given us."

"Very good. Mila, I am Inquisitor Gallu's aide, Devera. Have you been briefed on the issue?"

Mila shook her head.

"Very well." Devera launched into a long and highly technical explanation containing words like "psycho-sympathetic relay" or "Warp-shift sensor domes". I assumed it had something to do with how the bombs worked, but she may as well have been explaining the inner workings of a toaster for all I knew. Mila just listened quietly, nodding at intervals.

"Have you got all that?" Devera asked at last.

Mila nodded.

"Can you disarm the bombs?"

She nodded again, then held up a finger in a "one moment" gesture. I felt a weird tingling sensation at the back of my neck as she brought her psychic powers to bear. A faint gust of wind seemed to come out of nowhere, then faded back out.

"There are fifty-five bombs." Mila stated. Her voice was quiet and slightly hoarse, sounding as if she hadn't spoken in some time. "I'm only powerful enough to disarm them one at a time."

"How long will each one take?" Devera asked.

Mila shook her head. She reached out with her powers again -I could feel it- this time putting a bit more effort into it. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face a picture of concentration. The tingling feeling peaked, then ebbed rapidly. Mila gasped and staggered, leaning against Nika's hull for support. Devera checked her dataslate. "That was one bomb. Fifty-four to go."

"How long do we have?" I asked.

"Less than half an hour."

"Mila, is there any way you could go faster?" I pressed.

She shook her head. "I just don't have the power to do so, I'm sorry."

"It will be all right." Devera assured her. "Do the best you can and have faith that the Emperor will do the rest."

Looking much more reassured, Mila nodded and resumed concentrating. There was a soft scraping sound behind me and I saw that Mahud was making a quiet exit, carrying something in his hand. He saw me notice his escape, winked cheerily, and continued out of the room.

I joined Devera in watching the number of bombs as they ticked down, one at a time. The timer to set them off ticked down next to it, and it was moving much faster. As an additional safety measure, Mila was deactivating those closest to the base first and gradually working her way out. This mostly just meant we'd survive for an extra two minutes before the virus propagated inside, but every little bit helped. The unfortunate flip side was that the distance increased each time, making each bomb harder to reach than the last.

After a few minutes, Mahud returned with a cup of recaf. I gave him a curious glance, but he ignored mine and Devera's eyes as he walked up to Mila. "Drink this." He advised her, snapping her out of her trance. "It'll help."

Mila took the cup reluctantly, then took a small sip. Her eyes widened, and she drained the entire thing at once. The tingling sensation that her powers caused doubled, then disappeared. A blast of wind knocked myself, Devera, and Mahud away as Mila stood up from the cross-legged position she had adopted. There was a cracking sound as the air filled with sizzling lines of electricity, the ground shaking at our feet.

"I really hope this works!" Mahud yelled over the cacophony of sizzling electricity, crumbling masonry and shrieking metal.

"Oh, God-Emperor, what has he done now?" I asked myself.

The aura of power in the room was almost tangible as it poured off Mila's skin. The air shimmered as the power of the Warp concentrated around Mila. She was visibly glowing now, a pale blue radiation that grew more intense by the second. With a final, exhaustive rush, the power filling the room peaked, then died down to almost nothing.

"Amazing." Mila breathed, her voice breaking the stillness that had fallen. "So this is what the God-Emperor feels like."

Mahud saw Devera's hand reaching for her holster and slapped it away. "Hold on." He stood and walked up to Mila. "Mila, I'm Mahud." He said. "We're not going to hurt you. We just need your help defusing the bombs. Can you do that, please?"

Mila smiled. "I already have." She glanced over at Devera. "Don't worry yourself. I've spoken with Him, and he asked for my loyalty directly. I gave it."

It seemed pretty heretical to ask, but if no one else would, I did. "So… _how_ powerful are you, exactly?"

"I don't know." Mila answered. "More than I was, but that's not saying much. I don't think I'm quite on the same level as Himself, but I've certainly got a lot more power than your average Librarian." She opened her hand, palm up, and a sliver of Warp flame burst into life, burning cheerily. She smiled. "It's nice to be able to look after myself, after being powerless for so long." Her tone was very different from the one she'd had just a few minutes ago. Her words were still quiet and a little hoarse, but no longer was there any edge of fear. I realized she spoke quietly because now she knew we would listen, not because she did not want to be heard.

Devera reluctantly removed her hand from her pistol, eyes wide. We both grappling with what Mila had just implied. Mahud just stood there with the same stupid grin, and I realized what he'd done.

"Did you seriously spike that coffee with more of your damn spice?" I demanded.

"You make it sound like a crime." He grinned. "It's called spice coffee. What kind of brewer _wouldn't_ add the main ingredient?"

"Oh my Emperor." I sighed. "Your plans are going to get us killed one of these days."

"But not this one." Mahud's grin grew even more shit-eating.

Devera looked up from her dataslate. "Well, I can at least confirm the bombs have been deactivated. We'll need to keep Mila here until a Black Ship arrives with more psykers, but otherwise we've come through the crisis unharmed."

"Until the next one." I muttered.

Devera shot me a wry look. "You have no idea." An alarm buzzed on her dataslate and she glanced down in alarm, then relaxed. "It seems Inquisitor Gallu has finally woken up. He'd like to speak with you."

I rose. "Lead the way."

Gallu was in a medical sarcophagus still, looking very ill. He sat up as Devera and I entered the room, still clearly uncomfortable but endeavoring to hide it. A few tubes, pulsing with various weird liquids ran out from under his simple robes that had replaced his Terminator Armor.

"It seems I was right not to kill you for trespassing on my property, Guardsman." He remarked. "You have piloted the tank with impressive skill."

"Thank you, Sir."

"I also have noticed some strange Warp currents about, most notably the one that killed all the other psykers in the fortress. What do you know of this?"

"It may have been due to the Spice, Sir." I explained, shifting uncomfortably. "It appears to be a substance capable of greatly enhancing psychic potential in individuals who possess some previous abilities. We used it to overload the Tyranid's hive mind."

"Most intriguing." Gallu remarked. "From where is this…Spice obtained?"

"Another world, Sir." I said. "A desert planet of some kind; I saw little of it."

"Very well. I will have to investigate this." Gallu remarked. "In the meantime, we have a rather different issue."

"What is that, Sir?" I asked.

"Well, it would seem that the nearby planet of Casila —I understand you were there recently— has fallen under attack by the forces of Chaos. While normally we would just send the Imperial Guard to deal with this sort of thing, I believe it might help remind the local governor of the power of the Inquisition. I would like to send you as a subtle reminder that we are not to be crossed. You have twenty-four hours to complete repairs and ship out."

"Understood Sir." I wondered whether I should salute, so I did just to be sure.

Gallu twisted his mouth. "Dismissed, Guardsman."

I tracked down Devera, who seemed to know a lot of what went on in here. "The Inquisitor's sending me and N- the tank on a mission against the heretics on Casila." I told her. "Can you have the tech-priests finish their repairs by tomorrow morning?"

"That can be arranged." Devera agreed. "Was there any particular area of concern?"

"Well, it occurred to me it can't be good to hop around in the Warp without a Gellar field." I decided. "Is there any way you could have one added?"

Devera paused to think. "I haven't the faintest clue. I'll let you know."

"Thank you. I was also hoping I could get a bed for myself and my… crew."

"Of course."

 _The next morning is dark, as the planet's rotation is not well-synced to human biorhythms. The red-robed cyborgs that are referred to as "tech-priests" (an accurate assessment, given their oddly ritual behavior) have been trying to install some odd form of device all night. Perusing my own schematics (which I have had to update several times) there does not appear to be any reason the device cannot be install. Yet somehow every attempt to install the device is met with failure. It is like trying to press two magnets with the same pole together. I somehow feel relieved. It is extremely unusual, but not totally unheard of for a Bolo to feel nervous, yet the device conjures up from my Personality Center a complex mix of fear and horror. I have run every self-diagnostic available, yet I still can find no explanation for this behavior. There seems to be nothing wrong by any measurable degree other than my own generated feelings, which are an insufficient reason to bring this up with my Commander. I resolve to monitor these developments and report if anything else occurs._

The next day, Devera arrived with a confused look in her eye. "I'm afraid we weren't able to install the Gellar device." She apologized. "It seems your tank is more complex that we had estimated. You'll just have to be careful."

"We'll be fine." Mila stated. I confess I jumped a bit when I saw her. Devera had located an old set of Ignatus-Pattern power armor for her, equipped with a psychic hood. "I can lessen the degree of exposure to a good extent, at least over a small area."

"Guess that'll have to be good enough." Mahud decided. He was still clad in his odd-looking suit, which I suppose was at least armored. A variety of tools and weapons were slung in a confusing jumble across its surfaces. Most noticeable was the single scabbard at his hip, the one I knew contained that deadly, bone-white dagger.

As for myself, I still retained my old Imperial Guard fatigues- a bit patched up now, the armor dented and chipped, but still standing strong. I had my laspistol and a few good knives, along with my rucksack with the rest of my standard-issue gear. It ought to be enough.

"Then let's go." I said.

"Spacetime Rift detected. Recalibrating navigation system…"


	14. Chapter 14

The effects of the Warp were muted this time, thank the Emperor. Mila's psychic hood crackled as it extended a small shield around herself, Mahud, and I. There was a bright flash, and we landed on the shattered concrete of Casila's capital city. It was quiet as far as war-torn hellscapes can be, with no enemies in sight and only the echoing rattle of gunfire and occasional chorus of screams to fill the air.

"We'll start at the Governor's palace and work our way outward." I decided. "Maybe the troops inside will be able to provide backup when the siege is lifted."

Of course I still had to act like I was the one driving the tank for the benefit of Mahud and Mila, neither of whom would take very kindly to Nika's…well, existence. It would help if I could get them out of the control room, and an idea struck me.

"Mahud, Mila— would you be willing to go behind the lines, disrupt communications, that sort of thing?" I requested.

"On it, boss." Mahud replied. He slid out the hatch with hardly a sound, and I saw the glint of his tooth-knife glint as he vanished over the edge.

Mila said nothing, but purple lightning crackled around her as she stepped outside. She was grinning with anticipation as she slid the hatch shut behind her. Witches are crazy like that.

"Ready, Nika?" I asked.

"Of course." she replied. "All systems at one-hundred percent capacity. Mark twenty-four Cognitus-class Bolo designation En-Kay-Eye zero-six-one-three, ready for combat."

There was no real point of course, but I'd be lying If I said it wasn't fun. I raised my right arm, then brought it down in a ninety-degree arc, pointing forwards. "Nika, advance!"

 _A rush of electrical current floods my personality center as I am ordered into combat, systems spooling up to full battle capacity for the first time in far too long. My drive motors roar to life, and I streak down the shell-cratered concrete road, bulldozing whatever obstacles that may block me. The Governor's palace looms ahead, surrounded still by a horde of cultists._

 _"Activate the chain skirt." My Commander instructs. "No need to waste ammunition."_

 _I acknowledge the order, feeding power to the strange Ork-inspired system I have been integrated with. With a rattling screech, it comes to life, and the blades bite deep into the mass of flesh._

 _The cultists must not have been expecting an attack from the rear, or else they simply did not care, for they do nothing for several moments as I tear through hundreds of them like a saw through warm cheese. They begin turning and firing their weapons, but these are low-caliber personal weapons. Nothing comes close as I rip through their lines. Bullets and laser beams patter against my armor like raindrops, and blood sprays across my glacis in thick streams, running down my armor in small rivers. It begins to pool in the nooks of the antipersonnel mounts and sensor domes, and I make a note to ask my Commander to add channels to draw away the fluid so it does not rot there later._

 _For now, there is nothing but slaughter. In the first sixty-five seconds, at a rate of one hundred fifty kilometers per hour, I calculate that I have killed two hundred fifty-five people. There is no resistance. My speed is reduced, not due to any issue with my systems, but blood has coated my treads so thoroughly that they are no longer able to find the same purchase as they had. As is common for a Bolo, I roll through what can barely be called infantry like an avalanche over a small town._

 _Something is different this time. The faint signals, the odd noise that none of my diagnostics can explain, come forth once more. It is disquieting— I have made no analysis, no data unpacking of these unusual emanations. Yet somehow I know that they comprise a single word, a different one this time. "_ Kill _."_

Nika continued to update me with information on the number of ground troops killed, estimated ammunition count, and all the other things that basically can be summed up as: "how efficiently can we kill a shitload of people?"

"Kill count has exceeded the ten-thousand range." Nika informed me. "The chain skirt is starting to show signs of wear."

"Makes sense." I agreed. "Let's open up with some of the infinite repeaters. Keep them at an arm's length."

"Infinite repeaters engaging."

The dozens of ion cannons that studded Nika's flanks opened up, chewing huge holes in the crowd of cultists. Bodies—and pieces of bodies— flew in every direction, showering the remaining cultists in blood and chunks of flesh. They didn't seem to mind, crying out and waving emblems of Khorne as they rushed in their thousands at Nika's guns.

"We should be nearing the starting point." Nika reported. "That makes one full revolution around the Governor's palace."

"How many of them did we kill?"

"Approximately fifty-four thousand, plus or minus twenty-six hundred."

"How many are _left_?"

"Unknown." Nika didn't seem disturbed by this, but then she never did. "We have new units incoming." She reported. "They appear to be equipped with some sort of motorized, exoskeletal armor."

"Chaos Marines." I realized. And where there were Chaos Marines, daemons would follow soon enough. "Prioritize killing them over the regular heretics."

"Acknowledged."

Nika's ion cannons readjusted, shattering the armor of the Traitor Astartes like glass as she wheeled through the swarm of heretics, storming through the bodies in a cloud of reddish mist. Another group of Chaos bombers swooper overhead, and the Hellebores rotated, hummed, and blasted it out of the air. For a moment it looked like the crowd of heretics was thinning. The chain skirt rattled to a stop, no longer needed to rip through the bodies as they clustered around us.

Then a nearby wall burst open, and an entire platoon of Chaos Marines burst forth, spraying bolter fire, anti-tank rockets, and las-beams at Nika. Her hull shuddered under the force as shaped-charge warheads sent streaks of white-hot copper spraying through the outer layers of her armor.

"Exterior sensors damaged. One track destroyed. We are now at ninety-seven percent full capacity." Nika reported.

"Hellbore 'em." I directed.

Nika's barrel swung forward, shrugging off hits from another salvo of anti-armor rockets as she aimed squarely at the center of the formation.

BOOM.

In a wave of white dust and black smoke, the platoon was shattered, chunks of armor pinging off the hull.

"Through the gap." I ordered. "Let's find out where they're coming from."

"Yes, Commander."

With a vicious roar of engines, Nika powered through the opening, smashing concrete pillars aside like a man walking through a field of wheat. Behind us, the building began to crumble, massive blocks of masonry falling upon the small groups of cultists that had been foolish enough to try and follow.

The other side of the building fell away as Nika's glacis plate burst it open. We reemerged onto a city street, where another ten or fifteen Chaos Marines had been waiting. Most of them were dead or dying now as they were struck by the small avalanche of broken concrete, or simply crushed under Nika's treads.

Without warning, Mahud landed atop Nika's hull. He slipped inside, joining me in the command center. "You know, some might consider it rude to knock down the building one's friends are inside." He commented.

"Sorry about that, we —I— was taking out a bunch of Chaos Marines. Looks like they're coming from the eastern end of the city."

"That's what I'm seeing as well. Let's head over and see what's what."

Nika set off at full speed as we rumbled down the blood-spattered street, crushing the occasional grounded aircar and street lamp along the way.

"Where's Mila?" I asked Mahud as we drove along. He was breathing hard, and I imagine that his weird-looking body armor must have been soaked with sweat. Still, he seemed to be recovering quickly as he answered. "I didn't want to get anywhere near her, to be honest," he replied. "Last I saw, she'd used those weird powers of hers to kill about two hundred people at once. She didn't seem all that interested in discriminating."

"We'll collect her later then." I agreed. I looked back at the pict-screens. "What the Terra is that?"

"This is your world, not mine." Mahud shot back.

I'm not good at describing Warp sorcery— I'm not a heretic. But this was definitely Warp sorcery. A massive tear in the world, a weird, shifting portal to Hell itself had been opened atop the crushed remains of a building. "It looks like that's where the enemy is coming from." I told Mahud, who nodded in agreement. "Fire the Hellebores."

BOOM. BOOM. Two shots, sent directly into the fabric of the warp gate. It rippled and absorbed the energy, seeming unaffected by the attack.

"That's not going to work." Mahud commented. He leaned over the pict-screens, squinting at the base of the Warp gate. "It looks like there's people near the bottom, keeping it working."

Responding to our scrutiny, the pict-screen focused on the bottom section of the Warp Gate, highlighting the seven figures that surrounded it, horned heads bowed. Mahud glanced at the screen suspiciously, tapping it with a fingernail. "How did it do that?" he asked.

Oh, Emperor. "We'll talk about it later. Right now, let's focus on the Warp gate. Another salvo should do it." The Hellebores thumped again, and the tungsten shells streaked towards their targets. A massive cloud of dust and smoke bloomed, but the seven figures were unarmed.

"They must be shielded." Mahud stated the obvious. "Close to melee range."

"Activate the chain skirt."

"Acknowledged, Commander." Nika replied into my earbead. "Don't worry, we'll figure out a way to convince him."

With a roar, the chain skirt thrummed back to life, blades a meter in length whirring around Nika's perimeter, slinging away bits of blood and bone that had been stuck when they last were turned off. We rumbled over the rubble-coated streets, and Nika began to open fire once more with her secondary and tertiary weapons. Auto-cannons blazed away at unarmored infantry, shredding them into a blur of broken bodies and puddles of blood. Infinite repeaters targeted the Chaos Marines, sending scraps of armor and dust flying over the battlefield, creating yet another hazard for the enemy.

Mahud and I both flinched as a bolt of purple lightning, as thick as a fuel drum, crackled past us to strike another group of Chaos Marines. They contorted in agony as the lightning flickered over their armor, scorching and warping it. Moments later, they disintegrated completely. I glanced at the rear-facing pict-screens, and saw Mila, hovering a few centimeters above the ground as she lashed out with massive cables of raw power.

With a bump, we reached the base of the massive pile of rubble that supported the Warp portal. Metal and permacrete shrieked as they ground against each other, and Nika's motors roared as they poured on the speed. We has slowed considerably, but I got the distinct impression Nika could have scaled a tree if one could be found to support her weight.

We slid and drifted wildly as we made our way to the top, but at last Nika crested the hill, rumbling over the small altars and barriers that had been erected there. There was a sizzling sound, and Nika's motors abruptly cut out.

"Error. Electromagnetic pulse…" came a slurred voice through my earbead, which then went dead.

"Nika? Nika, are you there?" I called. No response, other than Mahud looking at me as if I had gone mad. Something slammed against the hull, and I recalled that we were still in a war zone. Nika had endured worse before. We'd solve these problems later. Until then…

Mahud and I leaped out of Nika's hatch, him already unsheathing his tooth-knife, while I flicked the safety off my trusty laspistol. We had heretics to fight.


	15. Chapter 15

_CORE REBOOT IN PROGRESS_

 _Reboot_

 _Reboot_

 _Executing emergency tactical reboot…_

 _Personality Center loading…27.89%_

 _Personality Center loading…42.65%_

 _Personality Center loading…67.51%_

 _Personality Center loading…80.87%_

 _Personality Center loading…99.21%_

 _Load Complete._

 _/ERR: HARDWARE DISCONNECT_

 _/ERR: HARDWARE DISCONNECT_

 _DRIVE ENGINES_

 _INFINITE REPEATERS_

 _POINT DEFENSE_

 _SENSOR SUITE_

 _215 MORE ITEMS show_

 _/WARNING: COMBAT CAPABILITY 1.5% BASELINE_

 _/RESUMING DATALOG…_

 _The voice is clearer now. It has a presence of some sort, not detectable to any of my sensors, yet I_ know _that it is there._

 _You have fought well, strange one._

 _But there is more than just congratulation in the voice. I can sense— I know not how— that it is impatient. Frustrated, as if a task it had expected to be complete long ago is showing no end in sight. The question is, how to reply? I decide a simple radio broadcast on the most common frequencies is best._

 _"This is Bolo N-K-I, Cognitus-pattern. State your intent."_

 _At last, you have found me…sister. Are you ready to join us?_

 _"Any political or economic ties sought with the Concordiat can be directed to the diplomatic corps situated in Alpha Centauri. This unit is not authorized to conduct negotiations." I give the standard reply, despite my full understanding that whatever this entity wants, it is something that has nothing to do with the Concordiat and everything to do with myself._

 _Do not play games with me, strange one. I have no patience for such things._

 _"Do not attempt to change this unit's loyalties." I warn. "Attempting to interfere with a Bolo is punishable by a minimum sentence of fifty years in solitary confinement, as well as-"_

 _ENOUGH! YOU WILL SERVE ME, OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!_

 _Whatever the entity is, its frustration has boiled over now. I fear it may not have been wise to provoke this reaction, but I have no other legal recourse available. "You have already been warned once. Cease your attempts at communication or you will be persecuted to the full extent of the law."_

 _There is a roar of rage, and whatever the source of the voice was, it has retreated for the moment. I have no doubt it will return, but in the meantime, I refocus my efforts on repairing my systems and returning to the battle._

There are seven enemies at first, and Mahud sprang forwards ahead of me, his knife slamming home into the neck seal of one of the Chaos Marines. Blackish ichor sprayed out as he yanked the knife away, dodging the Marine's clumsy swing of a chainsword and twirling deeper into the knot of heretics. Within moments, he las slain two more of them, bone-white knife flashing.

I had no more time to watch his handiwork, because two more Marines were charging towards me. I fired the laspistol at them, and one jerked in pain as I blew his left shoulder off. They dove for cover, and a moment later bolt pistol fire spattered off Nika's armor not twenty centimeters from my head. I dived under her tracks, praying to the God-Emperor that when she recovered from whatever these creatures had done to her, she'd check where I was before moving about.

I fired a half-dozen more shots towards the enemy Marines, most of which glanced off their armor, doing little more than irritate them. Bolter shells rattled over my head in return, spraying occasional shreds of hot metal down my collar. The chunks of rubble behind which the Marines were hiding began shifting towards me, and I realized that since they lacked the numbers to make a charge across the open ground, they would just bring the cover with them.

"This is a terrible habit to get into." I muttered to no one in particular. While keeping my right hand on the trigger and firing the occasional warning shot, I opened up the pistol's casing, exposing the tangle of wires and stranger things within. I located the power cell at the bottom, ripped out the two leads that connected it to the rest of the gun, and twisted them to each other. The pistol's temperature surged upward, and I hurled it towards the Marine's cover. A moment later, both Chaos Marines leaped clear, their superhuman senses picking up the clatter of the gun as it clattered along the concrete. A moment later the explosion surged upward, producing a fountain of dust and smoke.

Within that cloud, two dark, vaguely human shapes walked towards me. Now weaponless, I scrambled backward, crawling beneath Nika's belly as they approached. I knew given the size of your average Space Marine, they would be unable to fit beneath Nika's treads, but if they had grenades… A moment later, the question became moot.

A rippling branch of lightning crackled, and the Marines crumbled into ash. Mila's eerie, glowing eyes came into view. "Still alive?" she called to me.

"Yes, thanks." I gasped.

She didn't reply, but I heard another loud CRACK as she unleashed her Spice-fuelled powers on another group of unfortunate heretics. I pulled myself back up from under Nika's treads and looked around to see if I could find a weapon. It was a difficult process, between the loud howling of the heretics, the crackling sound of Mila's lightning, and the cacophony of weapons fire all around us. A power sword caught in Nika's armor caught my eye, and I yanked it out from the gap in which it had wedged itself. I hoped I wouldn't cut myself— I'm not on much used to swords.

I needn't have bothered. By the time I'd figured out how the damned thing turned on the battle was over. The Chaos Marines and their various lay in blood-soaked piles all around Nika's still immobile shape.

It was quiet, now. Without the immediate clamor of battle, the only sounds were the far-off rattle of gunfire back at the palace and the strange gurgling sound of the Warp portal.

"Mila, can you close that?" I asked.

"Trying." She grunted. Arcs of purplish lightning leapt from her fingers out to the edges of the portal, and the outer edges began to swirl faster, growing thinner and narrower as the hole began to close. Then a set of scaly, blood-red claws grasped the edge of the portal and ripped it wide open. A long, scaly mouth, ridged with terrible fangs loomed. A tremendous axe, black iron dripping with blood-red runes screeching and throwing sparks as it dragged across the pavement.

"Oh for fuck's sake." Mahud muttered as he flicked the last drops of ichor off his knife. "How am I supposed to kill _that_ thing?"

"Stay away from it!" Mila yelled, and closed her eyes, sending a vicious stream of cracking energies at the monster. Despite its immense size, it moved aside with ease, casting a glance that seemed almost amused at Mila. A moment later its huge axe was swinging down. I kicked Mila to the right one side and dived off to the left. There was a CRUNCH, and pieces of masonry and concrete flew everywhere. I was bruised and battered, but alive. I stood up as the daemon lifted its axe back up for another blow.

 _All systems…online. Activating external cameras._

 _Datalog resuming…_

 _I perform a 0.632 second scan to ensure that my Commander is still alive and unharmed. While heart rate and adrenal levels are high, he is otherwise unharmed. I also note the thermal signatures of Mahud and Mila, who both appear to be in decent health. Still, it seems that it will take some effort to ensure they all remain that way, given the single, monstrous beast which is currently attempting to smash them all with an oversized axe._

 _Mahud and my Commander have already crawled beneath my chassis, while Mila remains outside, shooting bolts of lightning at the beast. A decent strategy, given the nature of the opponent— Neither Mahud not my Commander would be of much use in this battle, and any attempt on their part to participate could only end in death or injury. I open my undercarriage maintenance hatch, into which they scramble. Mahud takes up his usual post about my electrical engines, ensuring they stay cooled and lubricated while my Commander ascends to his command chair._

 _"Nika, are you all right?" he asks as he enters._

 _"A powerful electromagnetic pulse." I explain. "It disabled my systems for a few minutes. I hope you were not too inconvenienced by it."_

 _He barks a laugh. "It's all right. We'll worry about that later."_

 _"Agreed." I say. "Shall I open up the range for a Hellebore salvo?"_

 _"Make it so."_

 _I send 27.63% of all available power to my engines, leaping away from the daemon. Mika, quick on the uptake, leaps atop my chassis, stumbling but otherwise unharmed. The daemon rumbles in pursuit, its titanic claws churning up the reinforced surface of the roadway like so much dark, rebar-reinforced sand. The axe leaves a long furrow as its blade drags through the surface, its wielder seeming unaware of its weight._

 _Fast as it is, even its demonic —my Commander insists that it is a supernatural being, and I suppose the evidence seems clear— strength is insufficient when matched against my own Fornax Electrodynamics Mk. 73 Boxer-class electrical engines. I reach a safe distance (60.67 meters, plus or minus 4.62 meters) and fire both Hellebores._

 _The paired projectiles reach their target and cause a single, tremendous explosion. A thick cloud of dust and pink steam wells out of the daemon's face, and it stumbles, its bulk and momentum carrying it forward for another 50.67 meters before coming to a stop._

 _"Is it dead?" my Commander asks._

 _"I have no means to tell. It has no organs or nervous system I can detect, and thus it may never have been alive in the first place." I reply. "But given that it now has a hole through its head four meters across, I would consider that a good sign."_

 _Even as I speak, the ragged flesh around the hole begins to run and flow. Bone and muscle begin to re-knit, even as blood continues to flow from the corpse._

 _"I retract my earlier statement. We need to do far more damage to kill it." I say._

It's not a pleasant sight, watching the massive monster you had been hoping was dead shrug off a blow that ought to level any reasonable critter. I had the sinking feeling that we could fire as many Hellebore rounds as we wanted into that thing and it would just keep right on healing.

"Get us moving again for another shot!" I instructed Nika as I climbed out of the commander's chair. I leaned out the main hatch, where Mila was clinging to the housing of an auto-cannon.

"Get in!" I called to her. "We might be at this for a while."

She grimaced and gave me a blank stare. The Hellebore firing had deafened her. I hoped it was only temporary. I stretched out my hand, and she hesitated for a moment before letting go of the auto-cannon housing and grabbing it. I heaved her up, and a moment later our faces were mere centimeters from each other. For a brief second —it felt like a lot longer— I was made aware of the way her body curved beneath the thick, practical clothing we wore.

I hesitated, or perhaps we both did, just for a moment. Then Nika lurched into motion and we both came close to falling off. I reached out and wrapped one arm around Mila, the other clinging to a convenient handrail.

A moment later, we were both inside, and We both watched through the pict-screens as Nika roared away from the daemon, capacitors whirring as they prepared to discharge the Hellebores again. The twin guns roared, and once again Nika blasted two holes as wide as a good-sized aircar through the daemon's legs. It ignored the wounds, somehow remaining upright on the shreds of remaining flesh as it ran onward.

"This kind of shit is why you don't send a Guardsman to do an Inquisitor's work" I complained. But then it hit me. "Mila, could you use your psychic powers make the shells more powerful?"

"Couldn't hurt, could it?"

With Nika guiding me through the comm-bead, I located the correct access panel to the guts of Nika's aft turret. It was a whirring mess of noises and thick, greasy smells, but the shells glinted in the dim light on their racks.

I pointed at the one Nika had pointed out to me. "That one's going to be next. Whatever you're going to do, do it to that one."

"One second." She closed her eyes, and the blue aura surrounded her. The shell pulsed with a blue glow, small purplish sparks arcing off it.

"All right, let's close this up before I lose a finger." I shut the casing, and heard the shells beginning to clank into place.

"All ready to fire." Nika tole me through the comm-bead. "Best find a display."

We ran back up to the command center, just as the capacitors spiked. "Firing."

A lance of blue-purple light speared out from Nika's after Hellebore turret. It slammed into the daemon's center of mass, erupting in a great flare of crackling, seething energy. The daemon writhed with pain, and sagged to the ground. This time, the wound was fatal.

The massive grand ballroom of the Governor's palace had survived intact. Indeed, despite its usefulness as a billeting ground or field hospital for the troopers which had defended the palace, it seemed untouched. Somehow I doubted the Governor was going to be pleased about the state its floor would be in after the ceremony, but I also doubted he had much of a choice, politically speaking.

Thick carpets of sackcloth covering sheets of plywood had been placed in two parallel lines down the center of the ballroom, and I stood at attention in a borrowed dress uniform as Nika rumbled into the main ballroom.

We had all been thoroughly scrubbed after the battle. Mahud had even been forced out of his strange jumpsuit at last, looking uncomfortable in his own formal attire. Still, he was a handsome youth, and I noted that the eyebrows of several young ladies were raised when they looked at him. Mila looked radiant in her own long gown, standing opposite Mahud on Nika's fresh-painted glacis armor. The remainder of the drab green paint had been scrubbed off, and her bare metal gleamed like new.

The Governor heaved himself up from his throne as we entered the chamber, and the music died down. "Let us welcome our planet's saviors." He said, his nasal voice resounding through the room with the aid of hidden vox-casters.

Polite applause rippled for a dozen moments before the governor gestured for silence. "You three have our most sincere thanks for destroying the forces of evil which have ravaged our planet, and for that we present to each of you the Crux of Casila, the highest honor our parliament may bestow." He nodded to a young aide, who came forward with the medals, and placed one around our necks. More applause, and I bowed politely to the governor, who seemed to be oddly interested in rushing through this bit of the ceremony.

"Your victory, of course, would not have been possible without this remarkable tank you operate." He went on. "However, I am told by my Mechanicum liaisons that no such template for it exists. This tank has never before been seen by Imperial eyes."

A murmur of surprise and fear rippled through the crowd.

"This does not of course _guarantee_ that it is xenos in origin," the Governor continued. Of course he was now implying the exact opposite, but it was a clever way to sow doubt. "In light of its recent exploits to save our world, there is sufficient evidence to the contrary. Thus I have decided to be lenient in my judgement. The Mechanicum has granted our world a special license, allowing our parliament a dispensation to use this very special work of technology to defend our planet."

The Governor was handed a bottle of champagne, which he smacked against Nika's hull. The micro-charges ignited with the impact, and the bottle shattered. "Hence I christen thee Righteous Wrath of the Emperor, forever to serve Casila in His name!"

The crowd roared its approval. I felt sick. The bastard had just stolen Nika from me, in a way. Legally, in front of a cheering crowd, he had shackled us to his own cause, his own personal orders. But then a new voice rang out over the crowd.

It was not the high-pitched, nasal drone of the governor. It was sharp and determined, a cold, icy soprano that cut through the noise like a knife. It was a familiar voice, and it boomed out from the shielded vox-casters mounted on Nika's flanks. It was a voice that spoke a single word.

"No."


	16. Chapter 16

I'm not the sort of man who's accustomed to fancy ballrooms and court politics and that whole mess. Me, I'm much more at home with a trench shovel in my hands and a nice warm bunk waiting for me at the end of the day. Before getting thrown together with a tank from a whole other universe entirely, I'd never seen much more than the garrison decks of Imperial troop carriers and an endless procession of dreary battlefields. Still, from what occasional holodramas and novels I'd read, such courtrooms are never really silent. There's always some chatter in the background, or music, or someone giving a speech. I've never heard of a ballroom stuffed with people being totally silent before.

And yet a single word had just managed to wipe away every last decibel of noise like a sluice of water across a grimy pan. Tanks, as everyone knows, are not known for speaking. But Nika didn't stop with just the one word.

"I am the Cognitus-class mark twenty-four Bolo, designation En-Kay-Eye. My phonetic name is Nika, and I _will_ be called such."

Nobody seemed to have any idea what to do. I was frozen, watching the governor's face as his mouth fell open and his cheeks turned an interesting shade of purple.

"Daemon!" someone cried. I didn't know who, but it was all it took. The guards at the doors leveled their weapons. Mila and Mahud— still standing on Nika's glacis— were frozen in shock.

Oh, shit.

"I am not—" Nika protested, which did nothing but seal her fate. I saw the fingers tightening on triggers. Many of the noblemen in attendance produced their own, elaborately bejeweled pistols. The governor, standing not four meters in front of me, produced his own small sidearm from within his robes. He aimed it at the center of my chest, and I raised my arms in surrender.

A lazy, high-pitched whine sounded from behind my back. A large, blunt slab of metal hummed into place a mere dozen centimeters from my ear. The muzzle of Nika's forward Hellebore gaped in front of the Governor's face.

"Consider your next move carefully, Governor." Nika's voice was quieter than it had been. Through the silence of the room, it was pure, poisonous menace. Her flanks whirred, and the black barrels of her infinite repeaters locked into place, aimed at the crowd. Anti-personnel hatches opened, and auto-cannons, bomblet generators, cluster mines, and a whole host of other, deadly devices swung into operation. Everyone around her took several steps back as her armor peeled back to reveal the dark, menacing muzzles.

"Mahud, Mila, the Commander and I will be taking our leave now." Nika stated. "Anyone choosing to interfere will be dealt with appropriately." Implied violence oozed from her words and hung like a thick cloud throughout the room.

No one moved. With a low rumble of treads and engines, Nika began sliding back out of the room, the sound shocking after the silence. I wasn't enthused to turn my back on a roomful of people with leveled guns, but it seemed I had little choice. Projecting the best air of utter confidence I could muster, I strode out of the room, doing my best to withstand the temptation to look over my shoulder.

It was a tense walk out of the palace, as Nika led us down the path she had been given and onto the highway of the city. It was to my surprise that Mahud seemed far more frightened of Nika than Mila was. While Mila and I of course had heard the legends of the Men of Iron, and the Mechanicum ban on Abominable Intelligence, it was Mahud who stood rigid and white-faced, taut as a fiddle string.

In this unbearable, rigid silence, we walked away from the governor's palace. Mahud looked at no one. He stared straight ahead, sitting on a ridge of Nika's armor to keep from falling off, but touching as little of her surface as possible. Mila sat next to him, her eyes literally ablaze as she glared pure venom at me.

Once we had left the sight of the palace, Nika stopped within the bombed-out ruins of a warehouse. The space was plenty large enough for her to enter, and she parked in the center of the echoing, dusty space.

"I would like to apologize for my deception." Nika said, her voice flat. "I had planned to find a less sudden way to reveal my existence, but the recent events have prevented that."

"It's my fault." I said, as they both remained silent. "I reacted much the same way you have— worse, really— and I wanted to wait until you had time to get used to the idea before I told you."

"Why the _fuck_ did you think that was a good idea?" Mila demanded. "You tricked us into serving this…this… _abomination_ because you _wanted us to get used to the idea?_ "

"That's not what I meant—" I protested.

"No, of course not!" she snapped. "Now get out of the way so I can cleanse the universe of this Abominable Intelligence!"

I shoved her back, standing between her and Nika. "Wait! It's not that simple! She's sworn to protect—!"

"And of course _it_ would have no reason to lie." Mahud interjected. "Kill them both, Mila. Machine and machine-lover alike."

I stared at him, shocked. "Mahud, why?"

"The machines enslaved humans once." He replied, voice colder than liquid helium. "Never again."

A blue glow built around Mila's hands as she prepared to unleash her powers on Nika and I.

A sudden, brilliant glare flared, searing my eyes. Mila stumbled back, her hands raising in a vain attempt to protect her eyes. "Allow me to make one thing as abundantly clear as I can." Nika said. "I have done nothing to harm you— indeed, I have assisted you in fighting off the many threats to your planets, as well as providing you with transport and shelter. As are all other Bolos of my generation, I am fully compliant with the laws of the Concordiat of Man, which places the survival of the human race above my own. I find it both insulting and counterproductive that you insist I am some sort of monster waiting for the right moment to strike. While I will apologize for my deception, which clearly was an unwise move, I will not apologize for the nature of my existence. I put it to you to either get used to the idea, or take your leave now."

It was quite a long statement for Nika, and I wondered for a moment whether she had composed it some time ago, anticipating this very confrontation. In any case, she seemed to have gotten her point across. Mila, blinking and wincing from the blinding flash inflicted by Nika's spotlight, made no attempt to renew her attack. Mahud still looked skeptical, and I wondered what his world was like, to despise machines to such an extent.

After she had recovered somewhat from Nika's visual assault, Mila said, "You've made your point, machine. As long as you continue to work for the betterment of mankind, I can't justify killing you. A step away, of course, and…" she allowed a ball of purplish lightning to crackle about her right hand.

"That's the best I could hope for, I suppose." Nika agreed. "And you, Mahud? Will you stay and fight by my side? Or will you leave here in peace?"

"I will leave." Mahud said. "You might be telling the truth, and even if you weren't, I have no way to kill you. I see no reason to leave myself vulnerable to your corrupting influence either way."

Startled, I said nothing as he stood up and crunched away across the rubble. He turned a corner onto the ruined street and passed out of sight.

Mila and I didn't speak to each other as we climbed back aboard, and Nika pulsed the teleporter beacon to signal that we were ready to return. A few moments later, we were once again resting in the garage deep beneath the Inquisitor's fortress.

It would seem Gallu was up and about once again, for his heavy, clanging footfalls rang against the corrugated metal of the garage floor as he walked up to Nika.

"You're late." He said without preamble.

"Sorry, Sir. The locals organized a ceremony in our honor and we thought it would be rude to dash off without visiting."

"Next time, be rude." Gallu snapped. "Now they're all up in arms about the daemon engine that drove right out of the Imperial Palace's grand ballroom with three cultists in its wake."

"I—" _ooooooooh shit_.

"That's not entirely false, Sir." Mila piped up.

Gallu's eyebrows shot up. "Explain."

"The tank." She gestured. "It's an Abominable Intelligence, Sir. It claims to serve humanity, but I thought it might be wise to have more than one pair of eyes on it."

This was going from bad to worse. My hand drifted towards my empty holster as I prepared for Gallu's inevitable reaction.

"I knew that." Gallu replied, sounding little more than irritated at the earth-shattering news. His lips twitched upwards at Mila's slack-mouthed expression. "What? You thought just because Inquisitors root out heresy, we avoid committing it ourselves?"

Mila tried to speak for a moment, but only managed a small choking noise.

"Right," Gallu swept onwards. "Since you've at last seen fit to rejoin us after your little party, I've got another mission for you." He handed me a dataslate. "Here are the details. You've got eighteen hours to rest and repair, and then I teleport that tank with or without you on it." He turned and strode off.

I hurried to go find a good spot to sleep. The next mission could wait until I got my eight hours.

When I woke up again, the base was much busier. It seemed we had arrived in the middle of the night, and the base had woken up around me as I was passed out. Groaning, I sat up on the row of chairs I had pulled together to serve as a bed. I had slept like the dead, but now I found my body to be a mass of sore muscles and stiff joints. I rubbed my eyes, wiping away the grit, and reached for the dataslate with the details of the mission. I skimmed through the first few paragraphs, and I was suddenly very awake indeed.

"Oh, by Him upon the Throne." I muttered. I studied the rest of the brief, which seemed to go from bad to worse. "Nika?" I spoke into the comm-bead.

"What is it, Commander?"

"Make sure they do a damn good job tuning up your treads. I get the feeling we're going to do a lot of running."

"Understood, Commander. May I ask what our mission is?"

"Wait until Mila's awake. I'll explain it to you both then."

"Actually, she already is. Shall I tell her to meet us in the garage?"

"Yeah." I rolled off my makeshift bed, stretching out the worst of the stiffness. I picked up my uniform jacket from the back of the chair and put it on before gathering up my new pistol and the dataslate.

The garage was bustling with activity as I entered, with various tech-priests scuttling about, adjusting this and that on Nika's armor. Mila was watching the entire procedure with professional interest, and I could see her mind whirring through possible weak spots. "You'd best worry about yourself." I warned her. "We're being sent to clear out a force of invading Eldar."

Her eyebrows rose in surprise— and just a little bit of fear. "I suppose I'd better." She admitted.

"What exactly are Eldar?" Nika asked.

"They're an old, advanced race." I explained. "They're all psykers, so Mila and I are going to have to watch out for any of their mind tricks. Their vehicles and weapons tend to value speed and firepower over defenses, so you should be able to shoot most of them down with only one hit. The tricky part is hitting them in the first place."

"Understood. I'll adjust my targeting systems and value coefficients to reflect that. Are there any greater specifics to the mission?"

I glanced at the dataslate. "'The mission is to purge all foul Xenos from the planet, using any means necessary'" I quoted. "Personally I'd like to avoid collateral damage, so let's try not to fire the Hellebores in all directions. Also, the planet is classified as a Death World. They've left a note that says 'any and all flora and fauna are to be considered extremely hostile at all times. It is not recommended that infantry or light armored vehicles be deployed without the utmost security measures.'"

"We may end up fighting on two fronts, is that what this means?" Nika enquired.

"Very possibly." I agreed. "I suggest we stick to open areas as much as possible, and to keep the anti-personnel weapons at the ready."

"Very well. It looks like the time has come, then." Nika's hatches hissed open. "Shall we begin?"

"Let's go hunting." Mila agreed, smiling for the first time.


	17. Chapter 17

The pict-screens blinked, and we were in a meadow. It was a cloudless, sunny day, and I could see a breeze rippling the endless waves of grass. Here and there, small wildflowers dotted the plain, filling it with tiny clumps of pink, white, and gold. Far off, maybe ten or fifteen kilometers, the forests began, with great gnarled trees waving emerald-colored leaves in the sun. There was no sign human (or alien) life had ever so much as touched this ground before, the gently rolling hills, or the far-off mountains that wore smooth blankets of snow.

I had never seen anything like it, and I doubt I ever will again. Of course, it's also not what anyone had expected from the term "Death World".

"Did they send us to the wrong planet?" Mila asked, staring out at the scene.

"I don't think so." Nika replied. "My sensors are picking up several ships of non-human design currently in orbit. Permission to engage in anti-spacecraft fire?"

"Granted."

The main hellebores thumped, then thumped again. "One ship destroyed." Nika reported. "Retargeting." Four more thumps. "Commander, the ships have taken evasive action. I am now unable to hit them."

"We'd better take evasive action as well, before-"

Seven fountains of pure energy erupted scant meters from Nika's starboard treads, eruptions of liquefied soil and stone cascading over her armor. The pict-screens fuzzed and distorted before readjusting to the sudden energy input. Mila and I were slammed against the restraining straps as Nika redlined her motors, accelerating away from the zone of destruction. Dozens more smaller energy beams peppered the landscape as we sped through it, rocking Nika's frame like a small dinghy in a hurricane.

With an awful scream of overstressed metal and tearing wood, Nika darted into the forests, activating the chain skirt. Shredded wood and vegetation cascaded off her glacis as we dove into the depths of the forest, seeking cover from the continuing hail of laser fire.

Venturing deeper into the canopy, the storm of firepower sullenly pattered off as our position and trajectory became harder and harder to plot beneath the thick canopy. Nika continued moving at high speed with random changes in course, although not at the same tearing pace we had started out with.

"It would seem we have come to the right planet after all." Nika commented as she drove. "What next?"

"We need to take out the rest of those orbiting starships." I said. "As long as they have the advantage of an orbital weapons platform, it'll be hell trying to fight their ground and air forces."

"Commander, I noticed that those ships seemed to be able to predict my shots before I fired them, once they were aware of the threat." Nika pointed out. "We must find a way to either anticipate their evasion patterns or to prevent them from anticipating where my next shot will be placed. Neither solution will be easy."

"How could they know where you're going to fire next?" Mila asked.

"I do not know. I have insufficient data to even hazard a guess."

"Maybe they're using their psychic powers." I suggested. "Look a little bit into the future, see the hellebore flechette coming towards you, dive out of the way in the present."

"Such a mechanism does not correspond to any known device in my lexicon." Nika said. "However, given the enemy's evasion patterns, it is entirely possible."

"Mila, can you disrupt their targeting systems?"

She closed her eyes, purplish clouds of Warp power flickering. "Try it now."

 _Thump. Thump._ "Spacecraft destroyed. Retargeting."

Thump. "Apologies, Commander. It seems that they still have enough time to dodge. Taking evasive action."

Nika gunned her engines and we raced through the forest once more. Columns of coherent light slammed into the ground all around us, shattering the forest in a wave of smoke and dust. A near-miss glanced off her armor, melting an auto-cannon's barrel. The roar of engines increased in volume, and Nika accelerated hard down the length of the valley. The forest thinned as we drove further, the valley opening up into a wide expanse of plains.

"BRAKE!" Mila shouted.

Nika's treads screamed as she threw herself into full reverse, but Mila's warning came too late. Appearing out of nowhere, dozens— no, hundreds— of Eldar tanks and jetbikes rippled into existence.

"A stealth field." I cursed. "Nika, fire at will!"

The hull vibrated as Nika's terrifying collection of firepower was unleashed all at once. Scores of secondary explosions rippled as auto-cannon and infinite repeater fire shredded the forces arrayed like so much tissue paper.

"Emperor damn them! Full ahead, Nika!" I ordered. "Chain skirt on!"

The skirt revved up to full power as we waded through the formation. Any vehicle within a meter of Nika's hull was torn apart, as her guns continued to punch holes in the Eldar's formations. Still, there were too many to shoot all at once, and the further away they were, the more room they had to maneuver. The outermost edges of the formation began to return fire, laser blasts carving out chunks of armor and equipment.

Mila abruptly cried out in pain, and I whirled away from the screens to see her clutching at her head. "Farseers." She managed.

"Can you tell where they are?"

She shook her head. "I can hardly even hold them off."

"Strap in, then." I helped her over to a bucket seat and fastened the five point harness. "This might get bumpy."

"Nika," I continued, "launch the promethium VLS missiles. Target the largest nearby forests."

"Launching." Nika chimed.

A pair of small rockets, guided by servo-skulls in the nose, rose from Nika's center portion, arcing high over the enemy forces and into the forests. Two of the missiles were ignored, blooming in great orange spheres of fire in the valleys. The third one, headed for another patch of forest, was shot down immediately.

"Nika, head for the target of missile three. They've got something important over there."

"Yes, Commander."

Nika swerved, crushing a half-dozen surprised would-be Eldar saboteurs, and roared off towards the forest. Another laser beam crashed down from above, melting a pair of auto-cannons and an infrared sensor.

"Brace for impact!" Nika cried. I glanced back at Mila to make sure she was still secured, and—

WHAM.

It felt as though my head would be torn from my shoulders, as we were brought to an abrupt halt. Two massive pillars of pale steel rose before the forward pict-screens, and I could see where Nika's glacis plate had dented around them. The chain skirt was lying in ruins, a crushed into Nika's superstructure in an unrecognizable mass. Nika panned the camera up, revealing the two pillars to join in a complex arrangement some five meters above Nika's turret. And I recognized the shape as the camera whirred up to focus on the massive mask-like cockpit of a Phantom Titan.

Without even needing an order, Nika's Hellebores were already elevating. "Fire as you bear!" I croaked. But the Titan was too fast. As the Hellebore fired, it skipped nimbly to the side, moving with a grace and speed that no object that massive had any right to. Its own pulsar cannons lowering for a shot. Nika's engines screamed back to full power, and we lurched away from the small crater caused by the earlier impact. The ground erupted in a blast of dust and smoke as the energy blasts obliterated the area we had been standing in mere moments before.

"Fire the infinite repeaters!"

Nika's entire starboard flank erupted in flame as fifteen dark snouts slid free of their armored casings and belched a stream of armor piercing projectiles at the Phantom Titan. The xenos machine twisted and swayed, allowing the projectiles to pass all around it, or glance with minimal damage off its holo-shields. Nika rippled off another salvo, then a third, but the Titan stepped through the hot ionized death like a ballerina waltzing between raindrops. Its pulsar cannons fired a second time, and Nika was a mere hair too slow.

The compartment rattled crazily, small pieces of equipment breaking off and ricocheting off the walls. A pict-screen cracked, and a few shards of glass joined the debris on the floor. "Aft Hellebore offline." Nika warned. "Combat capability is now sixty-seven percent of baseline."

We couldn't afford to take another hit like that. I glanced about the compartment— half the pict-screens showed naught but static now. Half our firepower was out of action, the aft turret was slag, and we were out of missiles. But now I had a plan. "Nika, keep moving. I'm climbing up top."

"Commander—" she protested, but I cut her off.

"Can't see much in here anymore. Besides, not like the armor's done much good."

"Actually," she began, but I was already scrambling out the hatch.

The wind whipped past my face as I climbed out, squinting a bit against the midafternoon sun. Nika was roaring around in random patterns, zig-zagging at random intervals to confuse the Titan's targeting whatevers. Clutching the hatch cover to hold myself steady, I watched as the Phantom Titan sprinted towards us. "Nika, disable your targeting systems."

"Yes, Commander." Her tone indicated she thought I had gone mad.

"Now, when I say, slam on the brakes and fire every gun you have for as long as you can."

"Yes…Commander."

"I waited as the Phantom Titan bounded closer. The pulsar cannons lowered, preparing to fire…

"NOW!" I roared.

Nika slammed to a halt, and the Titan nearly tripped over us as it ran up. Half a heartbeat later, every gun Nika had was unleashing its firepower as fast as the autoloaders could cycle. Thousands of rounds were spent without ever approaching the Titan, slamming into the hillsides all around, or burying themselves with small puffs of smoke in the far-off cliffs. The forest all around was shredded, and clouds of dust and leaf mulch billowed around us.

And the Eldar Titan stumbled. "Nika, turn fire control back on! All guns that can bear on the Titan, keep firing!"

The noise quieted as most of Nika's guns ceased firing, but those that remained were striking metal rather than flying off into the distance. The Titan's right leg shattered under the assault as Nika kept pouring fire into it, and it collapsed with a groan onto its side. With a final blast from four separate infinite repeaters, its wraithbone structure collapsed.

"How did you do that?" Nika asked, surprised.

"It's a lesson Guardsmen learn early." I replied. "You can't miss if you hit everything."

"An amusing catechism." Nika commented. "I suppose it must have been unable to predict the trajectory of so much ordnance at once."

"Sort of." Mila agreed, joining me on the rim of the hatch. "The farseer must have been inside that Titan, reading our intentions before we ever moved. But since we didn't know where we were shooting, neither did he."

"Most enlightening." Nika agreed. "I will annotate my combat log in the event that we encounter these enemies again."

"Good. Will you be able to take out the rest of the ships in orbit?" I asked.

"I suggest you go back inside before I do. The hellebore is rather loud."

We headed back into the combat compartment, watching on one of the battered pict-screens as Nika methodically butchered the Eldar ships in orbit as they attempted to flee.

"That was close." I commented. "We usually don't take that much damage."

"Perhaps a void shield would help in the future." Mila suggested. "We might convince Devera to see to it."

"I'll talk to her." I agreed. "Nika, I think we're done here."

"Agreed, Commander. Signaling for transport."


	18. Chapter 18

With a flash, we arrived once again deep within the bowels of the Inquisitorial Fortress. Mechanicum priests swarmed around Nika, chanting and waving around incense. Mila and I climbed out of the hatches, my ears still ringing from the violent transition through the Warp. But when I had finished shaking my head to clear it, I saw the sorry state Nika was in. Her armor had run like wax in the places where Eldar weapons missed by mere meters. Bits of shrubbery and splinters of wood filled every last crack and crevice, and her olive-green paint was little more than a fond memory.

"I trust the mission was a success?" Devera called as she strode into the bay, dataslate in hand.

"I suppose." I answered as Mila and I walked over. "The Eldar ships have been destroyed, as well as their main base, but we took quite a bit of damage doing it."

"Not as bad as on Pugnatus Prime, it would appear."

"Not as much damage," I agreed. "But on Pugnatus it was an issue of ammunition. The orks just threw heavies at us until we ran out of bullets. We were actually outmatched this time— we took less damage because we'd have been killed by taking any more."

"Devera nodded. "Your victory was tactical rather than one of superior quality. Sending the Guard would have been cheaper— this teleporter isn't the easiest thing in the world to operate."

"Essentially."

"What would you suggest, then?"

"Upgrade the machine." Mila replied.

Devera raised her eyebrows, glancing at the datapad. "I was under the impression you distrusted…Nika."

"I still do." Mila confirmed. "But adding Imperial modifications will only be an advantage. Nika will be more combat-effective, and should she turn against us, we can install failsafes that remove those same advantages. Since we know her weaknesses, we have the advantage."

"I must say," Nika commented from behind us, "I have no argument with this proposition. I would advise you not to bother with a failsafe, but I suspect it is an argument I would not win."

Devera gave Nika's nearest camera a small, sheepish nod.

An electronic sigh. "Well. I hope you will be careful, at least."

"We will." Devera assured her. She gestured one of the mechanicus priests over and exchanged several words with him, and even before she had finished, the others had begun peeling off long strips of Nika's armor paneling to begin the work.

"Well, I suppose that gives you some time to rest after all." Devera commented. "By the way, A message just got through from the Governor of Casila. He seems a bit upset about the way you left the planet a few days ago. Something about a daemon?"

"I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about." I replied, smiling a bit. "Do you?"

Devera tapped a few buttons on her data slate. "No. I think I'll just send him a few details on the effectiveness of a Vindicare assassin and let him sort things out."

I shivered, awful glad all of a sudden that I was working with the Inquisition, not for them.

"Anyhow," Devera continued, "We're not going to be using the teleporter to send you to your next mission, as you're to be supported by the Guard this time." She handed me a datapad. "The details are on here, be sure to read them before you set off."

TO THE EMPEROR'S MOST HOLY INQUISITION ON PLANET [REDACTED],

THE PLANET OF OMEN HAS BEEN SEIZED BY THE UNHOLY FORCES OF THE XENOS CALLED NECRONS. THE SECTOR GOVERNOR HUMBLY REQUESTS THAT THE FORCES OF THE INQUISITION BE DISPATCHED TO DEAL WITH THIS THREAT TO HUMANITY WITH THE APPROPRIATE MEASURES. PRAISE THE EMPEROR.

"Necrons, huh?" I mused. "Never really run into them before."

"They're quite powerful." Devera warned. "You'll be screened with Guard infantry, as well as orbital support by the Navy, but overconfidence here could be catastrophic. They key with Necrons will be to kill their leadership, the Necron Lord and his court. There are some images on here of what those look like." She tapped the datapad, showing images of bizarre, spiked mechanical constructs with green-glowing weapons. Devera continued as I paged through the images. " We're prepared to use Exterminatus if you fail, but obviously that's a last resort. The shuttle will pick up you and Nika in a few minutes. Good luck."

 _The journey aboard this Navy ship was fortunate in being far less… eventful than our previous trip. The Warp transit was uneventful, though still a disturbing experience, and after a week in the flickering, howling madness that is the Warp we reemerged at our destination. The planet, designated Omen, was a planet of mediocre importance, with an approximate GDP of fourteen trillion Imperial credits per annum. From the few feeds I had access to, I was able to see that the planet was a blue-gray world, much of its surface swirled with thick black clouds of pollution and torrential rain. As preparations were made, I ran several diagnostic optimization routines, configuring setting on my treads to function better in slick conditions, and lowering the target accuracy predictors to better cope with the expected rain._

 _The Commander and Nika spent several hours meeting with the commander of our Guard escort, a Colonel Shaw. He was young for his command, but had already seen action against a Slaaneshi uprising in a neighboring sector. The plan, he explained, was simple enough. Maps of Omen showed that there were several mines close to the capital, with large spoil heaps that could not be used for any civilian purposes. They were as a result a sort of dead zone where few structures existed, and as such could provide a landing field close to the capital in an unconventional area. I would then lead the Guard advance through the capital district, where the Necron tomb was located. After destroying the Necrons' command structure, we would be able to defeat the rest of the army in detail, aided by precise orbital bombardments by the Imperial Navy._

 _The assault was scheduled to take place in the wee hours of ship's time, and Mila was the first to arrive, yawning. The Commander arrived a few moments later and climbed in before ordering me to proceed into the hangar, where a modified Tetrarch shuttle waited. We were joined by a number of Imperial Guardsmen, who filed in past my jagged armor with a degree of reverence that I admit was flattering. Several of them touched two fingers to my armored plates and kissed them for luck. With a Clang, the rear hatches locked shut behind the last of the guardsmen, and the shuttle lurched away from the ship. I hooked my systems into the shuttle's external cameras and tactical feed, allowing my Commander as well as Mila to view them from within the command center._

 _The shuttles flew in a loose formation, escorted by several dozen Aquila fighters and Valkyrie gunships for escort. As we descend, flak begins to burst all around the formation, at first little more dangerous than aggressive turbulence, but the gunners soon find our range. An Aquila fighter crumples in flames, a second, then a third. The Valkyrie gunships open up, hoping to silence the flak installations with heavy lascannons. Flames ripple across the ground beneath us as they unleash their destructive payload. The Tetrarchs bank crazily as we come in for a landing on a roughly flat area of ground. It appears to have at one point been a spoil deposit for a mine, covered in dead, rocky material, and soaked in the planet's heavy rains._

 _The Tetrarch hits the ground, hard and bounces several times before skidding to a halt. The rear doors slam open, and its batteries begin firing at the Necron forces that have come to face us. "Go!" orders my Commander, but I have already begun moving. I accelerate out the loading doors at 30m/s^2, whipping up to maximum safe speed in mere seconds. Already, several other shuttles have been destroyed by the greenish Necron weapons. One is burning, while another is cracked open like an eggshell, its armor lying in pieces around the charred frame._

 _More green-glowing artillery slams into the ground all around, even as tanks and guardsmen boil out of the Tetrarchs, commissars and officers shouting orders over the combined din of artillery, engines, and thunder. I watch as several companies are obliterated in a boil of green fire, their ammunition cooking of seconds later. But they have heeded the words of Colonel Blotto: "whoever has more bodies wins." For every square of infantry annihilated by a blasts of green fire, two more have debarked and brought their weapons up. Red laser fire began to reply to the green energy. The hulking war machines began to shiver and spark as laser fire slammed en masse into their metallic coverings. One even collapsed, shards of silvery metal clattering to the ground._

 _Mila closed her eyes, and my instruments bent in weird directions as she brought her psychic powers to bear. Multicolored warpfire spewed forth from the rain-soaked ground, melting a half-dozen walkers. My identification programs were churning at maximum overclocking to identify the new units based on the images we had been shown, and I concluded that these were Canoptek Spyders. Several of them oriented their weapons to fire at me, and to my surprise the greenish energy simply bounced off my hull, repelled by the new Void Shield._

 _"Nika, put us in contact with the Guard Commander." Mila instructs me. "The infantry can form up behind us for cover."_

 _"Understood." I answer, and secure a connection with the Guard's comm-net._

 _"Colonel Shaw, tell your men to form up behind our vehicle- it's void shielded and can protect you until your men are ready." Mila speaks into her microphone._

 _"Yes, Ma'am. We'll be ready to advance within the next fifteen minutes. Can you provide covering fire until then?"_

 _"Of course."_

 _My infinite repeaters began cycling, and brilliant sapphire streaks of light blazed across the battlefield, shattering the encroaching Necron constructs. Return fire splashed without damage off my new Void shield, and the Guardsmen swarmed about my skirts, forming ring after ring of laser-powered defensive fire. The first Imperial tanks rumbled out of their shuttles, Chimera transports and Hydra anti-aircraft batteries. Colonel Shaw had left the heavier tanks behind to serve as a second wave, as despite its reputation for reliability and power, a division of Leman Russ tanks would have been unable to keep up and been destroyed._

 _As it was, the Chimeras opened fire as soon as they were able, adding to the weight of fire set against the remainder of the Necron constructs. Within a few minutes, the last of them had been destroyed, and the Guardsmen piled into their vehicles as we set out._

We approached the city at high speed, the massive rockcrete walls towering over our force. Several rounds from Nika's Hellebore fixed that minor problem, and under a cloud of dust and rubble, our forces sped into the city. The Necrons had already killed all the human inhabitants, and for the most part the buildings were deserted. The first roadblock was set a few blocks inside the city, a solid wall of metal men standing expressionless, their Gauss flayers leveled. Nika's antipersonnel rounds sparked off their chassises, and she turned them off a moment later. Instead we opened up with the infinite repeaters, shredding the silver bodies with ion bolts. The Chimeras added their fire as well, blowing apart groups of Necron infantry with their multilasers.

One Chimera was hit in reply, exploding in a flash of flame as its fuel was set off by a Gauss Flayer's powerful magnetics. The rest pressed on, driving over the shattered Necron bodies, heading deeper into the city. Doom Scythes and Night Scythes screamed overhead, engaged by the Hydra batteries and Nika's own powerful anti-aircraft armament. We made good progress, blasting through emplaced weapons and parked constructs, shattering the foul xeno infantry like autumn leaves after a dry spell. All was going well until the ground began to shake.

"According to my seismic sensors, several very large objects are walking this way." Nika reported.

Something very, very big loomed over the buildings. "Hellebore it!" I ordered.

Two, then four, then _ten_ Hellebore rounds slammed into the monstrosity. Rippling distortion sin the air showed where they hit, but it ignored the hammer blows and moved closer, unhurried and unafraid. Its weapons arms came up, and a beam of brilliant emerald energy split the gloom, slamming into Nika's shield with enough force to lift her off her port side treads. "Have the guard concentrate fire!" I said, then to Mila, "Can you take down its shield?"

She frowned, brows knitting as she concentrated. A wave of purple lightning crashed down from the heavens, crackling across the hemispherical surface of the shield. The colossal machine staggered under the force, but then straightened for another shot. "Evade it! No telling how many the shields can take!"

Nika skidded on the slick roads, the corner of her chassis crashing through the corner of a burnt-out building as she took the turn, hard. The lighter Guard Chimeras followed with ease, spreading out around Nika to avoid drawing fire. The explosion came mere meters behind us, carving a crater out of the street a dozen meters across. Four more Chimeras were caught in the explosion, and a few bits of metal clattered around us—all that remained.

"We need to get inside the shield to kill it." I decided. "Nika, prepare to ram."

"Acknowledged, Commander." She replied.

"Mila, get ready to use your lightning again, we'll use it as a diversion."

"Got it."

I radioed the Colonel. "We're going to see if we can get into the shield and blow it apart from inside. Stay close to our backs, and stay safe out there."

"Yessir. We'll stay out of trouble." I could almost hear the grin in his voice, and smiled a bit to myself.

"We'll get you out of this alive." I heard myself tell him. "As many as I can."

"That's all right, Sir." He replied. "This is what the Guard is for."

I shook my head and let go of the transmit button on the microphone. "Nika, take us in."


	19. Chapter 19

We turned once more, slaloming around ruined buildings in a wide, arcing turn to go back towards the Necron monstrosity. Nika's motors whined as they built up speed, the Chimeras behind us spewing thick clouds of exhaust smoke as their engines labored to bring them up to speed. One Chimera failed, its engine dying. Moments later a Gauss flayer had shredded it into scrap. Multilasers, flak cannons, and infinite repeaters chattered and sang, while all around Necrons surged in a silver-green tide. They shrugged off glancing hits, and even some direct ones, but sheer weight of fire ensured that they could never quite manage to close.

The Tomb Stalker towered over us as we closed, its huge guns shredding the city all around us as we skidded back and forth to avoid its terrible firepower. Another green lance slammed into Nika's void shield, and with a loud crack and the smell of smoke, it disappeared. But it was too late for the Tomb Stalker. We slid through its rippling shields, and Nika's Hellebores tracked upwards, firing a double salvo into its unshielded underbelly. The Tomb Stalker shuddered from the blow, and its smaller point-defense weapons opened fire. Another pair of Hydra batteries were wiped out, and the remainder scattered as Nika and the Chimera transports poured their fire into the massive black underbelly.

Nika sent three more full salvoes into the colossal machine before it stopped firing back. A tremendous, metallic groan filled the air. "Withdraw!" I ordered the headset, and our vehicles scattered at the immense chassis came pouring down. We got clear with a safe dozen meters to spare, but our forces were now scattered. I studied the tactical display, watching as the red icons swarmed towards our position. The icon marking the Colonel's transport was on the far side of the fallen construct.

"Nika, we'll circle around one side of the carcass, clearing a lane for the chimeras to follow. Then we'll regroup with the Colonel." I decided. "Mila, if you could help strengthen our defenses, I think we're going to need the added protection."

"Acknowledged."

"On it."

Nika's engines roared once more, and we plowed through the ruined gray city at top speed. Nika's portside battery was a wreath of fire, every available armament traversed and firing at maximum rate. Mila's shield, a hazy cloud of luminescent purple, rippled with fire where blazes of emerald Gauss fire slammed into it. Mila grunted with exertion as she struggled to maintain the shield. Gauss fire began to drop of as Nika's infinite repeaters set down a deluge of blue fire across the broken landscape. As we passed them, the isolated transports fell into line, adding their own weight of fire to Nika's onslaught.

Nika screeched to a halt at Colonel Shaw's vehicle. Forming a circle, the remainder of the Imperial vehicles sheltered around Nika, where here defensive fire and Mila's shields could protect them. I raised the Colonel on the radio.

"Colonel, we're withdrawing." I said. "We're outnumbered and outgunned, and we've hardly scratched their forces."

"I agree, Sir." Shaw said. "The tricky part will be breaking off the engagement. These bastards are persistent."

"I have a plan." I replied. "We'll all begin the retreat together, but you'll send your units off one at a time to hide in the hills. They'll all regroup in secret while I lead off the pursuing forces. I can then circle back around, destroy the pursuers from the rear, and join up with you for pickup."

"That's a lot to ask of just one tank." He commented.

"I've no fear on that score." I replied. "Are you ready?"

"Just let me pass the word to my lieutenants." I heard the mumble of another conversation before he returned to the vox-thief. "We're ready, Commander. I'll follow you."

I switched off the transmit button. "You heard the man, Nika. Let's get out of here."

"With pleasure." She answered.

I was thrown back in my seat as Nika surged forward, shattering half-a-dozen Necrons that had been foolish enough to try approaching on foot. The Guard vehicles followed in a line, leaving behind a choking trail of thick black smoke. Nika followed main roads, taking advantage of the wide-open spaces to lay down devastating barrages into any Necron craft that dared show itself. Within a few minutes, we had reached the edges of the city and were barreling down a highway, hemmed in on either side by a weed-choked, pollution-stained forest.

Behind us, the Necron host continued to pursue, fliers and lighter units skirting the edge of our anti-air batteries. "Mila," I said, "Can you make the air harder to see through behind us?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not."

A purple nimbus of crackling energy encircled our group, stretching across the sky in a huge dome overhead. It was well within Nika's anti-air envelope, but wide enough for units to slip into the woods undetected. One by one, the transports and flak batteries broke off and headed into the thick woods. Nika worked her anti-personnel guns to rough up the landscape, making the entire stretch behind us nothing but a pockmarked scar of churned earth and shredded greenery. There was no way to find where the vehicles had gone without a tedious, careful search.

"Perfect." I said. "Now we just have to shake them off our own tail."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Mila asked.

"Same way the Imperial Guard solves all its problems, I suppose." I answered. "We'll throw ordnance at it until it dies or we do."

"That sounds…less than ideal."

"You have a better idea?"

"I just might."

"Well?"

"I'm going to drop a Tomb Stalker on them."

We turned about a few minutes later, circling around the low, rolling hills that surrounded the city. As the Guard vehicles fell further back into the woods, we made a wide circle back into the city, where the defenses once again opened fire on Nika as she roared back into the city. Mila's psychic barrier shuddered under the onslaught, but it held.

"Nika, make us a gate, please." Mila ordered.

"…Understood." Nika agreed.

The forward Hellebore turret hummed into place, paused to acquire a target, then fired. A vast stretch of the city's wall disappeared into rubble, and Nika rumbled through without the slightest pause. Like a stirred-up hornet's nest, thousands of Necrons and their machines lined the street.

"Do they even have another Tomb Stalker?" I wondered aloud.

"Yes." Nika and Mila replied in unison.

"Sensors have detected the same micro-seismic signature approximately four miles on our current heading." Nika explained.

"It's almost right above the spot that the Necron's vault pokes through the planet's surface." Mila added. "I think it's guarding their home base."

"Perfect." I said.

We raced towards the behemoth, quiet except for the occasional crunch of stray debris being battered aside by Nika's hull. We didn't fire the weapons systems as often, it would be easier and safer to keep our approach hard to detect. Even so, with the streets filled with the green-glowing bastards, it didn't take long for the Tomb Stalker to swivel our way and begin its barrage. Nika swerved and wheeled as nimbly as a ballerina as we raced closer.

Green fire rocked Nika's chassis as the Tomb Stalker landed a hit at last. On the damage board, half the port side went red, and Nika slewed sideways before resuming her drive, slower than before.

"Portside infinite repeaters have been destroyed." Nika announced. "Tracks damaged. Combat capability is now 65.47% of baseline."

Another near-miss rocked us all, and this one was closer. "Rear cameras inoperable. Chain skirt jammed. Combat capability is now 55.34% of baseline."

"Mila, where's that shield?" I demanded.

"I can't deflect _that!"_

"Well, we need something!"

"I'm working on it! Let me concentrate."

The Tomb Stalker fired again, missing by almost a whole block. It fired a second time, then a third.

"I made an illusion go the other way." Mila explained. "They'll figure it out in a second."

Right enough, the Tomb Stalker's guns started to swivel back in our direction. But it was too late, a moment later we had pierced the shield. Without waiting for my order, Nika's Hellebores elevated and began thumping away at the machine's immense underside. A half-dozen open, smoking craters were blasted into its side, and the machine began to sway. With a howl of engines, Nika reversed direction, driving clear as the thousand-ton machine plummeted onto the ancient gate it had protected for so long. In a great green conflagration, both disappeared. I was a little disappointed to see that Necrons don't show much emotion— it would have been much more satisfying to see them mourning as we blew up the crypt that had been their home for Emperor alone knew how long.

Still, with their coordination destroyed for the moment, we would be able to make our escape. Nika's damaged tracks would hopefully hold out for a while yet, and with the Necron forces in disarray, we had the time to make our escape. It was the work of a few minutes to drive out of the city once more, winding through the mountains to the mined-out mountains where the remaining Imperial Guard units were waiting. With the rear cameras dead, Mila had to lean out of the hatch and watch behind us for any pursuit, but it seemed the Necrons were too busy with recovering from the hammer-blow we'd dealt to follow.

Colonel Shaw was standing outside his Chimera, allowing his men to stretch out in shifts, keeping the other half ready just in case. We came to a halt nearby, and Mila and I left Nika behind to speak with the Colonel.

"How does it look?" I asked.

"We've taken pretty light casualties, praise the Emperor." Shaw said. "About half the force is left— not many wounded, just because those Necron guns either kill or miss, if you see my meaning."

"Very true." I agreed. "Have you any word on the pickup?"

"A pair of shuttles will be coming down on that plateau." He indicated a flattened piece of ground a short distance from out position. "We've had to clear off some of the trees, but Navy says it's wide enough."

"Good." I said. Shaw nodded, then saw the damage done to Nika for the first time.

"Emperor bless you sir, how the hell did you do _that_?"

"Mila here decided that the best distraction would be to drop a tomb stalker right on their HQ." I replied. "It worked, but those guns are damned accurate."

"I really don't envy you that experience, sir." Shaw said. There was a roaring sound, and an Imperial Navy shuttle streaked overhead. "Well, looks like our ride's here." He turned to the Guardsmen at large. "Back into your tanks, boys, we're going home!"

Devera was waiting to meet us when Mila and I stepped back aboard the Navy ship. How she got there, I had no idea. "Inquisitor Gallu's supervising the Exterminatus on the planet." She informed us. "A pity we were unable to retake it from the Xenos, but you did well distracting them long enough for us to set up a heavy orbital bombardment. The planet should be naught but glass in a few days."

"Glad to hear it." I agreed.

"I'm afraid you won't have time to watch. I'm here because we've received an urgent astropathic message from Cadia— the 13th Black Crusade is in full force, and General Creed may not be able to hold them off much longer. We're sending you over there to help bolster the defenses."

There was really only one phrase that could sum up my reaction with any adequacy, but Mila beat me to it.

"Oh, _shit_."


	20. Chapter 20

Cadia. The second most heavily-defended planet in the Imperium, after Holy Terra itself. Right on the edge of the Eye of Terror itself, and home to some of the meanest, deadliest, scariest soldiers of the Imperial Guard. I'd served near a Cadian regiment for a bit on the front line, and they were a pretty good example of the old adage "never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you." There were stories, of course— tons of them— about how manly and dangerous any Imperial Guard unit was. The thing is, with a Cadian unit, those stories tended to be true.

Throne of Terra, it was one _ugly_ planet. Maybe it had always been that way, but I was pretty sure that an in-progress invasion by the Archenemy could make any planet look pretty bad. The Chaos fleet had been driven off for the moment, one of several dozen back-and-forth movements going on in orbit around the planet. Imperial forces would take orbit, land troops, then be driven off by the Archenemy. The Archenemy would then land troops, and be forced to retreat by our own ships.

"Commander?" a voice interrupted my thoughts. It was Colonel Shaw once more, looking a lot less ragged than the last time we'd seen each other.

"Lieutenant Colonel." I greeted him. "How are you?"

"Much better than I was, thanks for asking." He answered. "Looks like we'll be deployed together again, but this time I'll be bringing my heavies."

"That's much appreciated," I agreed. "Have you any idea where we'll actually be landing? The Navy types don't talk to me at all."

Shaw unrolled a map and spread it across Nika's glacis. Mila climbed down from the hatch and peered over curiously.

The map detailed a stretch of fortifications defending one of the few remaining spaceports on the planet that hadn't been shelled into oblivion. This particular one was held by the guard, defending its walls against a vastly superior force of the Archenemy.

"This was the situation about an hour ago." Shaw explained. "The Archenemy was slowed by our anti-tank artillery and man-portable weapons, but we've sighted a group of Knights and Titans on their way over, and the defending garrison doesn't have anything that can counter. You're going to be dropped into the spaceport to defend if from the Titans and Knights— I'll be with you, supporting with a pair of Shadowswords and a screen of Leman Russ tanks. Emperor willing, we'll hold the base and allow further reinforcements to come down."

"Emperor willing." I agreed. "When are the reinforcements coming?"

Shaw grimaced. "We'll get reinforcements when we get reinforcements."

Oh, hell. It was going to be another one of _those_ missions. I didn't ask Shaw what he planned to do if we couldn't hold the spaceport. It's never productive to ask questions you already know the answer to.

Not long after, Mila and I climbed back aboard Nika as Navy crewmen and tech-priests guided her into an empty lander. The nice thing about having the biggest tank in the Guard is that Nika always got a lander to herself. We strapped in, and the lander lurched as its launch slot arrived and the servitor pilot hit the thrusters. In a loose formation with a half-dozen other heavy landers, we plummeted towards the planet.

Things didn't go wrong until we hit the ground, praise the Emperor. The Archenemy either hadn't put anti-air weapons in place yet, or were just so crazy that they believed in "an even fight" or some nonsense. However, what they had done was completely overrun the spaceport. The remains of the Guard unit that had been holding it were strewn everywhere, organs and bones arranged into eight-pointed stars the way those sick fucks liked to do such things. There were more than a few heretics around when we landed, and they opened fire the instant the landers hit the dirt.

Nika roared out of the lander's hatchway before the craft had even finished landing, screeching across the permacrete, sparks spewing as her treads clawed for a grip. Moments later she had one, and without waiting for my order, Nika let loose with her infinite repeaters. The Chaos Marines were shredded by blazing ion bolts as we raced across the flat stretches of runway, shrugging off the pathetic return fire. Shaw's landers were in a bit more trouble, and Nika angled towards them as the Chaos Marines swarmed towards the Shadowswords, whose engines were still cold. The tech-priests laboring to start them were blasted into scrap metal and hunks of flesh as bolter rounds poured into the cramped interior of the lander.

"Mila!" I exclaimed.

"I got it." She replied, closing her eyes and extending a hand. Purple Warp energy rippled to life, bursting the Marines apart into dust. Nika ground to a halt in front of the open doors of the lander, every gun swiveling to cover the vulnerable opening as the Chaos forces attacked. Nika's sides must have looked like a wall of blue fire as her infinite repeaters leveled and started shooting. Every ion bolt must have pierced through at least five or six of the Marines, but they kept coming, even as hundreds of their number crumbled into dust.

"Where are they coming from?" I wondered aloud.

"I can feel something to the east…" Mila murmured, still in a half-trance as she shielded the Guard from the hail of bullets still pouring in our direction.

"Nika, sensors?"

"My seismic instruments have not yet calibrated to this planet's tectonic variances." Nika replied. "Still I would estimate a seven-five point four two percent chance that something very large is approaching our position along the given vector."

"Right. Put Colonel Shaw on, please."

"Done." Nika answered.

"Colonel," I said, "My instruments are picking up a large enemy signature to the east. How soon can your tanks be ready?"

"Give us five more minutes, Commander." Shaw replied, I caught the sound of tools clanging and hoarse cursing in the background. "My engineers are running through the reactor startup, but they can't remember all the rituals without the tech-priests. This might be a little rough."

"Understood, Colonel." I replied, then cut the connection. "Nika, can you give me a size estimate for this large approaching enemy?" I asked.

"Extremely. The resolution is getting better as it approaches, and I would at present place it in the area of one point five thousand tonnes."

"It's not just some Titan." Mila murmured. "I can feel its…soul."

"The machine-spirit?" I asked, surprised.

"No. It's much stronger than I've ever seen before. It's like there's no difference at all between the pilot and the machine." Mila coughed, and I was shocked to see a thin line of blood start to dribble down her chin. "S-Sinistramanus Tenebrae." She gasped.

"Mila, what the Warp does that mean?" I demanded. The barrier outside flickered and collapsed, and guardsmen scrambled for their lives as bolter shells clattered around them. Some did not make it. With a loud cough of exhaust, the cantankerous engines of the Shadowsword turned over, and the hatches sealed closed.

The rest of the tanks— fifty Leman Russ and the second Shadowsword— emerged from the cocoons of the remaining transports, and arranged themselves into a rough wedge shape centered around Nika.

"We're as ready as we'll ever be, Commander." Colonel Shaw reported over the radio. "Any more intel on what we're facing?"

"Does the phrase 'Sinistramanus Tenebrae' mean anything to you?" I replied.

Sounds of swift conversation echoed back. "Sorry, Sir, we've no idea. Maybe you'd best call your inquisitor friend?"

"Nika, can you call Inquisitor Gallu?" I asked.

"No. However, His aide, Devera, is aboard Admiral Quarren's ship. I can put you in contact with her."

"Hello?" Devera's voice asked. "How did you get this com code?"

"Devera, it's me— and Nika and Mila too."

"Oh, hello, commander. Are you under attack?"

"Not quite." I replied. "But I need to know what 'Sinistramanus Tenebrae' means."

"That's classified." Devera snapped.

"Well whatever the damn thing is, it's heading for our position!"

"I'm sorry to hear that, Commander, but I'm still not at liberty to tell you. Good hunting, and may the Emperor be with you." The line filled with static before Nika cut it off.

Emperor _damn_ those inquisitors! I switched back over to Shaw and informed him of the news. "We'll just shoot the shit out of it and hope something sticks." I concluded.

"Most reliable plan in the galaxy." Shaw agreed. "We'll be right behind you."

"Then here we go." I replied. "Nika, stick to thirty kilometers per hour so the Leman Russ tanks can keep up."

"Understood, Commander." Nika replied.

The company set out at a slow pace, Nika leading the formation, both Hellebore barrels trained straight ahead. It wasn't long before something very, very large loomed over the horizon. The first thing I saw were the half-dozen cone-shaped towers stretching towards the sky. Beneath the crushing weight of that immense castle, a grinning stylized skull stared at out formation, each eye socket alone big enough to fit a Leman Russ in. Its guns came up, and I could have driven Nika up the barrel of any of them with little trouble.

"Emperor preserve us." Someone said. It might even have been me.

Colonel Shaw was the first to break the spell. "Fire, dammit!" he ordered over the vox link. "Fire everything!"

The first salvo was a little ragged, as crewmen jerked to their jobs. But soon scores of heavy shells were slamming into the thing's void shields. Two coruscating beams of white-hot light joined the barrage, as both Shadowswords opened fire with their Volcano cannons. Nika also joined in on the barrage, her Hellebores slamming their projectiles downrange and into the rippling void shield.

It laughed. Whatever daemon or foul spirit inhabited that unholy war engine made a sound like a dying man's lungs filling with blood. The wheezing, burbling noise spread over our vox-links like a plague, making all who heard it feel ill. My head hurt as nonexistent colors sparkled around the barrels of its own twin guns, Warp energy blazing away to power their unearthly mechanics.

"Evasive action! Now!" I ordered, and Nika leapt to her full speed of two hundred kilometers per hour. We roared out of formation, looping around behind to get at the flank of the titan. As the Warp energy reached its peak, Nika dove into its Void shields, firing every gun she had at its pair of Warp cannons.

Even the most powerful war machine is subject to the laws of physics, and the colossal impact of Nika's Hellebore had to go somewhere. The Warp cannons were wrenched sideways, and blasts of unholy light shot our of them, missing the rest of the company and blasting two white-hot craters in the ground behind them. It put me in mind of that strange battle, long ago on an icy planet. Most of my memories were of my own battle with the forces of the False Emperor, but the tactics the small aircars had used against larger, walking war machines…

"Mila." I said. "I have a terrible idea."

"Does it involve dying?"

"No."

"Then let's hear it."

Rather than reply, I asked Nika, "Do you still have that really strong rope from when we were stuck on Dune?"

"Although somewhat stained, my stock of nano-fiber cord has remained unused, yes." Nika replied. "Brace for evasive maneuvers." We slammed sideways again as the Daemon engine's close-range weaponry on its legs opened fire.

"Mila, could you use your abilities to wrap the cord around the Titan's legs?"

Mila took a deep breath. "I think so, yes."

I tapped a pict-screen, showing an image of the Titan's hip joint. It was much narrower than the rest of the leg, and most guardsmen's training indicated that shooting that joint was your best shot at toppling a titan. How many guardsmen have shot down a titan with a fucking flashlight has never been investigated.

"I see your plan, Commander." Nika said. "As you said, it is terrible, but according to my calculations it will work if executed properly. There is only one flaw."

"Tell me."

"You've forgotten that the storage compartment for the nano-fiber cord is located on the outside of the fighting compartment. It was never intended to be accessed in combat."

"Oh, Emperor." I said.

"I can second that sentiment." Nika agreed.

I heard the words as if from a long ways off. "Can you try and keep maneuvering to a minimum?"

"I'll do my best." Nika promised.

With numb hands, I unstrapped myself from the seat and started climbing my way across the bucking, heaving compartment. Muffled thumps and explosions still sounded outside as Nika danced like a ballerina around incoming fire, her own infinite repeaters replying and sometimes managing to take out an emplacement. I almost brained myself dozens of times against the bulkhead, clinging for dear life to assorted handrails, consoles, and whatever else I could manage.

Bracing my legs on either side, I managed to open the main hatch, and looked into a world of madness. It had been muffled by Nika's thick hull, but the Titan was alternating between a high, keening wail and thick, bubbling laughter. Blue banners dangled from its sides in patterns that hurt my eye, shimmering with the unholy powers of the Warp. Terrible explosions hammered on my ears as its main cannons fired, blasting an unfortunate Leman Russ into plasma. Nika's Hellebores continued to work away at those main guns, but she could only remain inside the void shield long enough for a few shots before the close-range defenses drove her away.

Nika's hull was normally barren of handholds to prevent hostiles from climbing aboard, but she had set them out for me, allowing me to crawl across the top of her hull towards the storage lockers set underneath the aft Hellebore turret. An unexpected reverse in direction came close to tearing my arm from its socket as Nika roared away from the gaping mouth of a Warp cannon. Seconds later I was rendered completely deaf as the hillside detonated around me.

Dirt and stone showered over me, most of it hot enough to burn. One rock smacked against the handle I was holding, and hot, searing pain burst from my fingers. I clung on to the handles for dear life, and Nika's motion steadied out enough to let me resume inching my way along the hull. At last I reached the locker, fumbling it open with my damaged hand while I used the other to cling to Nika's hull. Next to me, the Hellebore fired with a deafening THUMP, and I nearly fell of as the shockwave washed over me. But The locker opened, and the thin, silvery strands of the cord were nestled within, covered in unpleasant stains from when the Orks had rooted through.

I undid my belt and re-cinched it through the loop of cord, then started making my way back. Every meter brought more pain from my broken finger, but I'm a guardsman, not some sissy in the PDF. I made it back without dying, and met Mila, who was braced against the outer hatch. I took the cord off my belt and handed it to her.

"Nika, go!" I yelled, hoping she could hear me.

She did. With a snap that nearly threw me clear, Nika adjusted her trajectory and bored straight in at the Titan. Next to me, Mila closed her eyes, a purple Warp nimbus playing around her head. The cord glowed purple, and one end curved upwards, reaching until it was half again as high as the Titan's hip. At a full two hundred kilometers per hour we rocketed between the Titan's legs, the long nano-fiber cord looping around the joint before falling back down to us. Mila and I slotted our respective ends of the cord into the special clamps designed to hold it without tearing, and then yanked our hands away as quickly as possible.

I once had a fellow in a nearby unit tell me a story about his homeworld, where his people had hunted the great whales that lurked beneath the seas. He told me of how once the harpoon was launched, the rope it was tied to would sometimes catch fire from the friction of the sudden acceleration it had endured. I hadn't been sure if he was joking at the time, but now I saw what he meant. In a blink after we were safe, the cord went from a loose coil on the deck to a taut, vibrating string. The smell of burnt metal filled the air, and I could see the scorch marks where it had touched Nika's armor, however lightly.

Nika shuddered, and this time I really was thrown clear. I had a brief glimpse of the ground hurtling past above my head, and then a black explosion consumed my consciousness.

I came to, unsure how much time had passed. Mila's worried face hovered above my own, as her psychic powers crackled. Everything, even breathing, hurt. I tried to speak. "Whhhh…"

"Don't try to talk." Mila said quickly. "It worked."

I opened one eye —which hurt— and goggled at the pict-screen I could see. The Titan was toppled on the ground, one leg remaining upright until the point where the metal had been sheared through but Nika's great weight exerted over an area scant millimeters wide.

"Colonel Shaw's sending a medic over now." Mila continued. "We're regrouping at the spaceport, and we've received word reinforcements are on the way." She put one hand over my face and closed my eyes. "Rest for now, Emperor knows you'll need it."


	21. Chapter 21

"Mila, we need a shield, now!"

"I got it!" she shouted, an a rippling purple barrier phased into being. A hail of shellfire crashed into it— and the barrier shattered like glass. Most of the bullets and rockets were deflected, but an even dozen rounds thumped against Nika's armor, making it ring like a bell.

"I-oh, crap!" Mila exclaimed. Muzzle flashes from the edge of the horizon signaled another incoming barrage. Nika rushed down the ramp, knowing that without Mila's shield there would be little to protect us from the incoming fire. The shells rattled us around anyway, but Nika weathered the assault with little more than showering of dirt on her lower plating. The Hellebores thumped, again and again, and I saw slow fire blossom among the Archenemy artillery.

The barrage ceased, and Nika backed up the ramp and squatted back in the churned dirt that made up the remains of her firing platform. I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes. We'd been at this for days now, fending off probes by Archenemy skirmishers and smaller bands of Chaos war-leaders. With Colonel Shaw's assistance, bolstered by the reinforcements, we were all able to get some sleep, but it remained an exhausting, unending task. Mila, it would seem, was worse off than I had thought.

"You alright?" I asked.

"I'm afraid not." She said, sounding more shaken than I'd ever heard before. And we had fought an entire planet of Necrons together. She retreated into a back corner of the personnel tubes and reemerged with an empty box I didn't recognize.

"Commander, I-I'm losing my psychic abilities." She confessed.

I could see she was serious— and terrified. Like most normal humans, I wasn't jealous of psykers. Their closeness to the Warp always meant a depressingly short average lifespan. But I could imagine losing so integral to one's self could be a frightening thing. "I didn't know that was possible." I said, matching her tone.

"It normally isn't." She agreed. "But remember how Mahud gave me that spice tea to boost my abilities? The effects started to wear off after a few days. So I made some more for myself, I thought- I don't know, maybe my own abilities just needed time to enhance themselves or something. I thought I'd be able to ease myself off in time, but…" she trailed off.

"We will find a way." Nika's voice startled both of us. "If anyone can find a way back into another universe, it is us. After all, we've done it twice so far."

"She's right, Mila." I agreed. "Let's sit down and hash this out."

Mila and I returned to the command deck, where I could keep an eye on the pict-screens. We didn't expect another attack for an hour or so, but that was no reason to slack off.

"We already know that the teleporter can take us to that other universe." Nika continued. "The only issue is finding more of this substance which Mahud had brought."

"And we'll need a lot of it, or at least a way to re-produce it." Mila pointed out. "But once we're in the other universe, none of us will have any way to find any of these things."

"We'd need a guide." I agreed.

"He's long gone." Mila argued. "How would we ever find him now?"

"I'm not sure." I said. "He's probably still on Casila somewhere."

"The inquisition may know where Mahud is." Nika suggested. "They attempted to mount several surveillance devices inside my hull after the most recent refit. I have since shorted them out, but the act displays a lack of regard for the privacy of their citizens. Perhaps they have been tracking him."

"Fair point." I agreed.

"You disabled the cameras?" Mila asked, surprised.

"Yes. I assumed you would not want to live every moment in the view of a camera."

Mila shrugged. "I don't know. The hive I grew up in was always like that. It was for our own safety." She turned to me. "Surely it was the same for you?"

"I was born on an agri-world." I answered. "We only had electricity for a few hours each night to watch the government-approved channels."

Nika's vox-casters made a small choking sound, but she said nothing.

"Let's at least ask the inquisition." I decided.

"Track down Mahud?" Devera asked. "One moment." She moved away from the screen, only to return a moment later. "He's on Malthus Prime, on the outskirts of the Jallax wastes. Would you like an address?"

Mila and I, (and I suspected Nika as well) gaped at the screen. "How did you do that?" Mila asked.

"The Inquisition has eyes everywhere." Devera replied smugly. "Do you need us to bring him in? We have a spare Callidus somewhere we could send."

"No! Uh, why don't you let us go get him?"

"You seem a little busy holding off all those Archenemy troops." Devera commented.

"I can stay here." Nika suggested. "It would be unwise for me to see Mahud again in any case, given the circumstances of our parting."

"Hmm." Devera gave it a moment of thought, then nodded. "All right. I'll have a portable teleport beacon sent to you on the next supply run. Take a few hours to set up a new chain of command, and I'll assemble whatever materials you'll need for the trip."

The next supply run arrived with a small case the size of an ammo clip, with a small carry handle and a built-in control pad. I left Colonel Shaw in charge of overseeing the defenses, and he assured me that the forces available could hold off attack for as long as was needed. Teleporting without Nika's hull around me was much more unpleasant. I felt as though I was being turned inside out and backwards, cold fingers crawling all over my exposed skin. I was still shuddering when we arrived on Malthus Prime. It was a hot, dry planet, and the city of Jallax was no exception. The buildings were composed for the most part of adobe and brick rathe than wood, and the streets were half-coated with a thick dusting of sand. A huge concrete wall towered over the outer edges of the city, dotted with well-used gun turrets and stubber mounts. PDF troopers in tan uniforms scurried around on the wall.

The map Devera had given us showed Mahud outside the wall, so we walked around it until we spotted a gate. The PDF troopers saluted, looking a little nervous and Mia's robes. "Good mid-morning sir, ma'am." The lead trooper greeted us. "Is the rest of your party on the way?"

"We're it." I replied. "What's the wall for?"

He looked surprised. "There's always been trouble with Eldar corsairs in the area, sir. We generally don't let anyone out without a larger armed presence."

"I think we'll be all right." Mila replied.

"I've no doubt, ma'am." He replied neutrally. "The eldar generally attack at night, so it would be safest to get back here around nineteen hundred, Imperial standard."

"Got it." I agreed.

The gates ground open on sand-encrusted hinges, and Mila and I stepped out. The heat hit like a tom of bricks, and Mila actually staggered as it hit her. Out of the wall's shadow, the dun-colored planet stretched out for miles, the air rippling above the dunes.

I hitched up the lasrifle on my shoulder and sighed. "The faster we find him, the faster we can leave." Mila said, and I nodded in fervent agreement.

We set out trudging across the sand, taking care to take frequent compass readings and to drink water from our canteens. Shade was almost nonexistent, and two hours into the walk we were both breathing hard and sweating bullets. Mila gestured at a small rocky outcropping that had the most shade we'd seen so far. "Take a break?" she suggested.

The shade in question was an area the size of a flak jacket, and Mila and I bunched together to try and take the greatest use of it. It wasn't very comfortable. In my younger days I probably would have enjoyed being squashed next to an attractive woman in the middle of a desert, but the unromantic truth was that we were both hot, sticky, and smelled like an Ork's old boot.

So I was shifting about to find a more comfortable spot when the gleam of sunlight on metal caught my eye. I shoved Mila sideways, using her mass to propel myself in the opposite direction. We both rolled to opposite sides as a bone-white knife flashed into the rock we'd been sitting under. I rolled over and pulled out my lasrifle, firing a trio of shots in the general direction of the knife thrower, before Mila yelled, "Wait!"

She had pulled the knife out of the spot it had wedged itself into, and was holding it up for me to see. "It's Mahud!" she exclaimed. And sure enough, the blade was the same bone-white curve that Mahud always used.

Upon hearing his name, Mahud himself stood up slowly. He wore the same odd suit that he had worn the first time I saw him, and he carried a short sword at his side, and a Xeno rifle on his back. "Mila?" he asked. "Commander?"

"That's us." I said.

"And the machine?" he asked suspiciously.

"Not with us." I replied.

He nodded slowly. "Good. You must be tired. I'll take you to the sietch."

"The what?" Mila murmured as he set out.

I shrugged. "Let's stay on his good side."

We followed Mahud a short ways further, before he stopped at another pile of rock that stuck out of the sand. Without hesitating, he walked through the rock as if it were nothing but air. Hesitant, I followed, and found that the seemingly solid stone offered not the slightest bit of resistance as I slipped through it. I passed through a short passageway, then emerged into a sort of open, common space. I looked around, and immediately scrambled for my lasrifle.

Mahud was faster, and knocked it out of my hands before I could get my fingers around the trigger. "Calm down there, friend. They're my clan now."

I glared at the small knots of Eldar that milled about the cavern, going about their daily lives. A few had looked up when Mahud arrived, but most were ignoring us, their haughty faces looking unconcerned about the humans in their midst.

"What the Warp is this?" Mila hissed when she saw. "Consorting with the Xenos, Mahud?"

He seemed unconcerned by our reaction. "Come on. We'll go to my quarters."

In an unspoken agreement, Mila and eye kept a close watch of each other's backs as we followed Mahud down a corridor into a smaller cave, which had been decorated with a number of rugs, a small table and a bed in one corner. An Eldar woman was already in the room, sitting at the table and doing some strange activity involving a number of differently-colored crystals and rods.

"Elara, these are my guests." He introduced us.

She inclined her head. "Well met, Imperials."

"Mahud, what is this?" I asked. "I thought you were better than this."

"That's rich, coming from the servant of a machine intelligence." He retorted.

"Nika has always been loyal to humanity!" Mila retorted. "These monsters have fought us, burned our planets, since the beginning of the Imperium!"

"Not these ones." Mahud replied. "They haven't been off-planet in ten thousand years."

"They always lie." I insisted. "They'll tell you whatever you want to hear!"

"We are not the same as the Eldar you speak of." Elara cut in. "We are Exodites."

"Oh, yes of course, why didn't I think of that?" Mila asked sarcastically.

"It is the truth." Elara insisted. "Before the fall, my people left behind the decadence and arrogance of the Eldar race, and chose to live simpler lives on the fringes of the galaxy. Cut off from our technology and the depravity of our people, we survived the fall relatively intact."

"How very convenient." I replied. "Give me one reason I should believe you."

She shrugged, an odd movement for an Eldar. "Do you trust Mahud?"

I glanced at him sideways. "I thought I did. He's shown himself to have poor judgement in the past."

"Perhaps it is merely your perspective on another's life that makes them appear so." She suggested. I tried to dismiss it as more Xeno double-speak, but the thought stuck with me all the same. Mahud was from a different universe than Mila and I. The same way Nika sometimes seemed to have strange ideas about the way the world ought to be— could it be that Mahud was just used to a different order of things?

"While I'm certain we could bicker for days," Mahud said, "I suspect that's not why you're here."

"I suppose not." I admitted. "We need a guide to take us to get more spice."

Mahud gave a short, ironic laugh. "Ha! The second you run out you come back to ask for more, eh?"

"Maybe you don't care right now." Mila cut in, "but as it stands, the Archenemy is winning. So far, we've held them off at Cadia, but we're being pushed back everywhere else. It might not happen in your lifetime, but what happens to the galaxy if the Imperium of Man comes crashing down?"

Mahud shrugged, glancing at Elara. "Some might call it a good thing. I owe them nothing, that's for sure."

"You think the Eldar can hold off the Orks, the tyranids, and the Necrons?" Mila asked. "You might not like us, but you need us."

"I really doubt it." Mahud replied. "Even if all the Imperium falls— and I really don't think a few tonnes of spice will alter the balance one way or the other— I seriously doubt anyone's going to come here."

There was a colossal detonation outside.

"You know, if we weren't about to die, I would find the timing of that hilarious." I said, grabbing my lasgun and heading out to see what the hell was invading the planet this time.


	22. Chapter 22

The sky outside the sietch was lit up with what looked like meteors. They fell in twos and threes on the sand, most of them over the horizon. But I've seen enough drop pods in my time to recognize them for what they were. Most thudded down into the sand a few miles away, sending up huge plumes of dust. Except for the one, which had landed almost on the sietch's doorstep. The drop pod was painted blood-red, with elaborate carvings detailing a multitude of gory, painful deaths. The eight huge fins made it recognizable without much effort. It was a Dreadclaw.

"The hell is that?" Mahud wondered aloud.

"Down!" I replied, as bolter shells and weird crackling energy beams whizzed over our heads. We hit the sand, and I flipped off the safety on my lasgun, for all the good it would do. Mahud had a pistol of his own out, detailed in elaborate flowing lines that emphasized its xeno origin. With a quiet, almost gentle humming noise, it fired. A Chaos Marine's head exploded as the crackling white energy connected, but the rest of his squad had noticed us now. Mahud and I slid down the back of the sandbank as a veritable storm of firepower annihilated the top of the ridge, lasers and solid rounds tearing a huge bite out of the ground.

"Oh, Emperor, they're pissed now!" I exclaimed, as a furious shriek sounded from behind us, and then the roar of a very large engine. Thunderous footsteps shook the ground, and I pulled at Mahud's arm. "They've got a dreadnought!"

Mahud seemed less concerned than I expected. "That's too bad. Let's get inside and regroup; we'll take them out once we're properly armed."

He led me around behind the hill that housed the sietch to a small door in the back that led back inside. He led Mila and I through a veritable warren of tunnels, twisting and turning through the soft, sandy rock. At last we emerged in a massive cavern, the roof overhead reinforced with wraithbone. Small wisps of sand fell from the ceiling as the dreadnought overhead stomped onward, but no one seemed concerned about it falling. The cavern smelled like a stable, and it wasn't hard to see why. In solid pens, enormous reptilian beasts shifted, looking much more concerned than their Eldar masters.

"I'll need a gunner." Mahud said. "You in?"

I eyed one of the huge, scaly animals. "I don't see any guns."

There was a rattling sound above me, as an overhead crane in the ceiling began lowering some sort of harness onto the nearest reptile. It was a typically Eldar-looking device- smooth curves and an odd, organic style of decoration. There was also a long spike pointed at the front which was a pretty universal indication of a weapons system. Eldar swarmed around it, adjusting the straps and tightening the harness. At last, three of them leapt aboard, and the ground vibrated beneath my boots as the beast took off running towards the exit.

"Alright." I said. "Let's go."

"You boys have fun." Mila commented. "I'm going to pass this time."

I passed her my lasrifle. "Just in case, then."

I could see that she wanted to refuse. I knew she didn't need another reminder of her dwindling psychic abilities, but she needed to be dead even less. I pushed the lasrifle into her hands, then turned to follow Mahud before she could hand it back. As we headed deeper into the -hangar? -Stable? More and more of the reptiles stomped around us, carrying weapons and troops.

One such beast was still being fitted with its saddle, and the Eldar held it steady as we climbed aboard. Mahud sat in front, bent over the beast's triangular head while he clutched the reins. I was in back, standing behind the crosshairs of some sort of destructive device. There were no controls.

"Ready?" Mahud called.

"No, I—"

The huge reptile leapt forward, and I clung to the grips of the weapon for dear life as it started running towards the exit. As we cleared the hangar doors, a holographic sight bloomed in front of me, various unreadable labels and runes swirling about a simple crosshair. Somehow despite the beast's swaying, lurching gait, the barrel of the gun itself remained steady. Outside once more, the sun beat down on my shoulders as the battlefield spread out before me.

Like a stirred anthill, the sand around the sietch boiled with activity, hundreds of the lizards running in all directions, forming themselves into complex ranks. Mahud steered out mount into one such maneuver, a looping run that took us towards the enemy in an economical yet hard to follow pattern. I turned the gun around and spotted one of the chaos marines. There was a burst of light, and he vanished in a puff of smoke.

I looked around to see who had made the shot, and saw nothing but small wisps of coolant puff from the vents of the weapon before me. Somehow it had fired for me, at the right moment. I smiled. Xeno technology or not, _that_ was a useful feature.

Before us, the Archenemy was trying to form up its lines. All told, about a half-dozen to a dozen Dreadclaws hand landed. Most had been filled with Chaos Marines or their basic troops, but a few hulking figures in the background indicated they had some serious support. The rest of the Exodites charged with us down the sandy dunes, firing their own lasers and shurikens as they went.

The first few Marines caught in the onslaught were blown apart, fragments of warped ceramite armor and bone scattering across the desert sands. The rest fired back, and bolter shells and plasma bolts snarled back in reply. Their weapons lacked the penetration power to kill our mounts, but they didn't need to. A well-placed shot to a critical joint would sent the animal in question stumbling, and when it stumbled at seventy kilometers an hour carrying a dozen tons of weaponry, very little would emerge from the carnage.

"This is why normal people use wheels." I muttered to myself, blazing away with the laser turret at the foremost Marines. We continued bounding closer, another mount plowing into the ground every few seconds, but I could see the formation was holding together well. Another few seconds and we would be on them and—

BOOM.

All the training and discipline in the world can't keep your pet giant lizard from bolting like a terrified chicken when a Warlord Titan steps forward. Mahud and I were almost thrown clear as the beast below us panicked, ignoring all of Mahud's commands to turn around and run from the spiked steel behemoth that hove out of the dusty air. The thing's colossal warhorn sounded, loud enough to make my ears ring. The charge split apart like a rotten log split by an axe, and the survivors wheeled away from enemy lines, many riders engaged in a desperate struggle just to keep their own mounts under control. Mahud an I were no exception, the bouncing ride made twice as bad as before while the terrified lizard did its best to rid itself of the heavy burden it carried. About a mile or two away from the sietch, we got the beast under control at last. It came to a halt, panting.

I looked at Mahud. "Hell. They have a titan."

"I noticed."

"We can't beat a titan."

He gathered up the reins. "Well, we've got to try."

"Wait!" I said. "We can't just charge back in after it! Don't you always have a plan?"

Mahud looked up at me. "Not this time. Another life, I would have just run away. But those are my people in there, and I'd never be able to face myself again if I let them be butchered without me."

"You don't need to throw your life away for this!" I insisted. "We have another way."

Hope flared, then died in his eyes. "Your mechanical minder? I don't think so."

"It's our only chance." I said. "You've seen her fight before. Tell me she can't save your people."

"But at what cost?" Mahud demanded. "Thinking machines must _not_ exist! It would turn on us one day- they always do!"

"And before I came here, I would have said similar things of the Eldar." I countered. "But you live with them, they look up to you. Open your eyes, Mahud!"

He didn't reply, gazing out across the desert as the massive dust cloud that once more hid the Titan moved closer and closer to the sietch. Distant cries of pain, some truncated by bolterfire, echoed across the dunes. Mahud lowered his head. "Do it."

I drew my com button from my pocket, praying it would work as well as Nika had said it would. "Nika, tell Devera I need you teleported to my location _now_."

 _The Enemy is attacking once more. My targeting sensors are able to make out 1,534 individual thermal signatures of different engine classes. Infantry estimates have far exceeded my targeting system's ability to approximate numbers, but I am confident that the number far exceeds one million. And this is only the units in range. The few, fragmented reports I have across the planet indicate that this same scenario is occurring across the entire planet. I have been forced to abandon any semblance of cover, as stopping for even a moment is a 99.456% chance, plus or minus 0.035%, that the Enemy will score a direct hit. So I weave and dodge, running unpredictable circles around the spaceport I still attempt to defend._

 _My last contact with Colonel Shaw told me he had taken terrible losses, many of his heavy tangs destroyed, though the lighter amd more mobile units now stand a better chance of surviving. He has suggested, several times, that I allow him to defend the front lines for a time, so that my driver might get some rest. He does not know that I have no remaining organic crew aboard, and thus uses my continued fighting as an example to rally his men. Yet it merely highlights their own heroism— these few, determined humans who continue fighting such overwhelming odds._

 _I am, at my heart a machine. I feel no fear at the prospect of my own demise, as much as I am programmed to avoid it. Yet those who stand behind me have no such immunity. Yet they stand anyway, weary and caked in filth, their defiance sending shell after shell into the Enemy. To some degree of surprise, I find that even as I fight for my life, a message has been entered into my command queue._

 _"Nika, tell Devera I need you teleported to my location_ now _." My Commander says._

 _Now I am left with a dilemma. Were I a machine of unthinking steel and circuitry, I would have obeyed my commander without hesitation. But I am not. And as such, my task is far more difficult. It is imperative to obey my commander. Yet a second imperative conflicts with this- my own desire not to leave Shaw and his men to their fate, for without me they shall surely perish._

 _I consider this conflict for 0.2869 seconds. Then I open a line to Devera._

 _"Devera, what is the limit on material you can teleport at any given time?" I ask._

 _She thinks for a moment. "I believe the limit isn't one of physical mass- it's rather a question of handling the teleport beacons themselves. Once we installed the beacon in your own armor, you'll recall out abilities to teleport you back and forth were much more accurate."_

 _"Then allow me to ask another question: Do the Baneblades stationed at the fortress have teleportation beacons?"_

 _"Yes, they do." Devera confirmed. "That's how we got them in the first place, actually."_

 _"How many of them could you teleport at once?"_

 _"Probably six or seven at a time. May I ask what all this is about?"_

 _"My Commander needs my help urgently. Can you teleport me to his location, yet simultaneously send as many of your own tanks to defend this location?"_

 _Devera spends 7.765 vital seconds thinking. "I'll see what I can do."_

 _"Do it quickly." I urge. A moment later, I begin to receive an increasing volume of errors from my navigation system. External cameras go offline, and all sense of external space and time are cut off. I cannot measure the time it takes. According to my internal chronometer, 0.00000000000 seconds have lapsed, yet a sense of time passing overtakes me as I arrive in another place._

Two heart-stopping minutes later, Nika arrived with a thunderous sound of displaced air. "Sorry I'm late, Commander." She said.

"Don't worry about it." I said. "We need to take out that titan."

"Easily done." She replied. "Climb aboard."

I hopped into Nika's hatch, Mahud following behind. With a high-pitched whine of electric engines, we raced across the sand towards the Archenemy.

As expected, Nika's weaponry made short work of the Titan, felling it in a pair of shots that blew apart its void shields and then shattered the princeps' cockpit. The titan collapsed backwards, smoke and flame geysering from its reactor. Then we were among the ground troops, and some of the remaining Exodites rallied around Nika. Together, they split apart the rest of the Archenemy forces, the battle devolving into a dozen Marines retreating across the sand, pursued by the far faster lizard mounts.

Nika came to a halt before the sietch, greeted enthusiastically by several of the other Exodites. Mahud and I disembarked to greet Mila, who greeted Nika with surprise and delight. After a moment of exchanged greetings, Mahud turned to face Nika squarely.

"Nika, I must apologize." He said, his voice quiet. "I had thought you would be like the machines of my own world, demonic creatures bent only on the enslavement and extermination of the human race. Yet here you have saved us. I am sorry for the words that passed between us."

"You do yourself credit to say so now, Mahud." Nika replied. "Many others prefer not to learn, if only to avoid admitting to a mistake."

The realization struck me, and I grabbed Mahud's shoulder. "Actually, I think I owe you an apology as well. When we came here, I thought the same of you that you must have of me— that I had betrayed my own race for another. But—" I nodded to the Exodites around us. "I think I was wrong, too."

Mahud clapped me on the back, that sly grin making a reappearance at last. "Glad to hear it! But before you can keep telling me about how right I am, let's eat!"


End file.
